The Wizard Of Oz is now a spectacular fantasy production encompassing the inside of the giant globe called The Sphere which looms large over the Las Vegas Strip.
Where the yellow brick road leads for Conor Benn after his one round, one minute and 25 seconds destruction by the fastest gun in Sin City is a question to which nobody had the answer as he was being ferried to hospital for precautionary checks. And may not have for some time to come.
There is no clear pathway back to the heights to which he was thrust all too prematurely and without justification this Saturday night.
Benn had no place being in the same ring as world welterweight champion Ryan Garcia, who is emerging as the golden goose saviour of American and Mexican boxing. Nor had he done anything like enough in his patchwork career thus far to qualify for the honour of topping the bill at an arena as grand as the T-Mobile in as hallowed a home of boxing as Las Vegas.
This was a match made far away from fight heaven, deep in the casino vaults. Benn Jr leaves here millions of dollars the richer but with not so much as a scintilla of evidence that he will ever be able to mix it with the royalty of the ring, in which King Ry sits upon the throne. He has the payoff but not the legacy he craved.
For the second time in as many months English sport comes home from America with its tail between its legs. Only this clinical beat-down of an inferior boxer was aeons more humiliating than the retreat of our footballers from the World Cup. His defeat more comprehensive than that by Argentina.
Conor Benn was beaten inside two rounds by Ryan Garcia in their welterweight championship fight
Benn’s humiliating defeat came after he thrust all too prematurely and without justification into the title fight
Benn had no place in being in the same ring as world welterweight champion Ryan Garcia
Little did Benn know, in his delusion of self grandeur, that in return for securing his family’s financial future he was used as a sacrificial pawn in the power struggle for control of big-time boxing between the houses of Queensberry and Matchroom against the arrival of UFC promoter Dana White on their doorstep.
Garcia, younger of the two by a year but a decade wiser, knew. He tried to cushion Benn’s fall from grace by calling him a ‘good dude who I hope can come back from this.’
But as a man who likes to tell it as it is he felt compelled to add: ‘ I knew exactly how the fight would go. Rushing in against me from the start is not a good idea. Not the way to go. You need patience in this game.’
When it was pointed out to him that Benn has not stopped an opponent for more than four years he added: ‘I must be honest. I did not feel any power in his punches.’
Not that there were many of them. Benn’s charge from the first bell was suicidal against the best, fastest and hardest counter puncher in the world. He ran headlong into a hail of Garcia’s trademark left hooks. To note that he lost the first round is as understated as saying that Goliath had a bad day at the office against David. And when in the second Garcia brought into play the right hand which is now almost as deadly as the left Benn was gone in 85 seconds.
Gone crawling on the canvas and still so unsteady when reeled to his feet that the referee let him continue only so far as the next battering.
Garcia observed: ‘It could have been stopped after the first knock down. I looked into his eyes down there and they were glazed over. He was already gone.’
He echoed the pre-fight fears of many of us that Benn could be in critical jeopardy if this went on too long, saying: ‘It would not have been good for Conor if this lasted any further.’
Benn appears to have been a sacrificial pawn in the power struggle for control of big-time boxing between Queensberry and Matchroom against the arrival of UFC promoter Dana White
Has he lived to fight another day? Dana White sounded less than totally convinced: ‘I’ve told Conor to go on holiday with his family and call me when he’s ready to come back. Then we can try to find the right fight for him.’
That would not be at welter after his ‘hellish’ struggle to cut his poundage. But if he can be hammered into oblivion by a 147-pounder what will become of him if he goes back up two divisions to middleweight?
No such doubts hang over Garcia. Having been saluted to the reverberating rafters of the T-Mobile by his half-brother Mexicans in the delirium of their Independence weekend celebrations, this Californian will resume his American love affair in more world title fights against the likes of Devin Haney and Teofimo Lopez.
He, not Conor Benn in his wildest dreams, is the face and the future of boxing over here.
