“You can play football, you can play basketball, you can play baseball, but you don’t play boxing.”
We have all heard some variation of that adage, used to convey the unforgiving nature of the sport. But in 2026, how true does it really ring?
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Last Saturday — and not for the first time — I watched Dave Allen enter the ring massively overweight for his fight with Thomas Carty in front of more than 83,000 fans in a sold-out national stadium. Ryan Garcia has admitted to smoking cannabis and drinking alcohol heavily during training camp for his infamous 2024 bout against Devin Haney.
Both men looked like they were playing boxing.
Allen has spent much of the past decade arriving out of shape — and, by his own admission, barely training for some fights — yet the sport has continued to provide him with significant paydays. Hundreds of other boxers are more talented and hardworking, yet they will never be rewarded with even one of the dozen opportunities that have come Allen’s way.
Garcia appeared to be abusing substances in the weeks before a major championship fight, but it did little damage to his career or reputation — at least as far as the recreational substances were concerned.
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Perhaps you can play boxing from time to time.
Well, at least some fighters can.
Garcia and his opponent this Saturday, WBC welterweight title challenger Conor Benn, perfectly illustrate how boxing may be the only sport in which the highest earners are not necessarily its most talented or accomplished competitors, and its biggest opportunities routinely fall at the feet of those who have done the least to deserve them.
Garcia and Benn have one more thing in common: failed drug tests.
Benn twice returned adverse analytical findings for the fertility drug clomiphene in 2022 but never received a ban. Less than a fortnight after Garcia recorded the biggest victory of his career over Haney, it emerged that he had tested positive for ostarine.
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In other sports, they may have been sidelined for years. But not in boxing, no.
Garcia received a lenient 12-month suspension and his victory over Haney was overturned to a no-contest. Considering top-level boxers rarely fight more than twice a year, a one-year suspension is essentially a one-fight ban in practice.
Benn’s drawn-out case ended when an independent National Anti-Doping Panel concluded that it was “not comfortably satisfied” that he had committed an anti-doping rule violation. Would a little-known fighter, without the same financial and legal firepower, have emerged from that process with the same outcome?
Garcia (L) and Benn are taking center stage on one of boxing’s biggest annual weekends of the year.
(Cris Esqueda/Golden Boy via Getty Images)
But boxing’s biggest stars were never going to be adequately punished for their crimes.
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Garcia’s one-year absence from the sport felt almost inconsequential. Throughout it, he attended major boxing events, faced off with prospective opponents and publicly discussed his return. There was no sense that his place in boxing had been taken away.
And most disappointingly of all, there was no shame.
In a meritocratic sport, a fighter returning from a drug suspension might have been required to prove himself again. Not in boxing. Before Garcia even completed his suspension, it was announced that he’d return in a world title fight against Rolando “Rolly” Romero.
Garcia vs. Romero was a historically dreadful contest, and Garcia lost.
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He had returned from a drug suspension, performed abysmally, and been beaten in a world title fight. Only in boxing could his reward be another world title opportunity.
This time, Garcia did strike gold. He impressed in dethroning Mario Barrios and finally legitimized a career that had endured its fair share of turbulence.
Now, Barrios was arguably the weakest champion in the sport, but Garcia could not control that. You can only beat the man put in front of you. If boxing had decided to make Barrios a champion in a division as historic and prestigious as welterweight, then so be it.
But Garcia was not Barrios’ mandatory challenger, nor was he even a deserving contender. He received the opportunity because he was the most lucrative opponent available. It was another example of boxing prioritizing popularity over merit — and few fighters have benefited more from that tendency than Garcia.
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Benn is now Garcia’s mandatory challenger.
But why?
Simply put: Benn is a major star, and his former promoter, Matchroom, did an excellent job of advancing his interests. Last year, the son of Hall of Famer Nigel Benn went 1-1 across two enormous middleweight fights with Chris Eubank Jr. By the end of it, Matchroom had successfully petitioned for Benn to be installed as the WBC’s No. 1 contender at 147 pounds and, eventually, its mandatory challenger — despite not having fought at welterweight since April 2022 and not having recorded a major victory in the division.
Benn challenges for the WBC welterweight title despite not fighting in the division since 2022.
(Cris Esqueda/Golden Boy via Getty Images)
Souleymane Cissokho won a WBC final eliminator in May 2025 against another proven contender, Egidijus Kavaliauskas. He should have been next. But, as so often happens in boxing, he was pushed aside to make way for the bigger commercial attraction.
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Garcia’s career has carried him from one major fight to the next. Knockout losses, racist and homophobic online rantings, a failed drug test and dreadful performances — none of them have prevented enormous opportunities from arriving.
Benn’s career was built on the foundation of his father’s name. As Nigel’s son, a raw novice was afforded the rare luxury of developing beneath the brightest lights until an inherited rivalry with Eubank delivered a pair of eight-figure paydays.
Now one of boxing’s biggest stars, he is set to earn an eight-figure purse for a fourth consecutive fight — and still nobody can be certain that Benn belongs anywhere near the sport’s elite.
Neither Garcia nor Benn is considered one of boxing’s leading pound-for-pound fighters. They may not even be the two best welterweights in the world. But when they step through the ropes on Saturday night, millions of eyes will be watching because it is a genuine superfight. That’s boxing in 2026.
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