‘I Drink And I Smoke Weed’

Somewhere in the musty offices of the New York State Athletic Commission, a red telephone rings.

If that whole boxing thing doesn’t pan out, Ryan Garcia still has a promising career in mumble rap.

Garcia and opponent Devin Haney were on hand for yesterday’s kickoff press conference, held in advance of their April 20 pay-per-view (PPV) title fight at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.

Haney asked Garcia to “stop the coke” because it was “f—king up” his voice.

“I want to clarify some things: I don’t do cocaine. I would do a live drug test,” Garcia said during the kickoff press conference. “I drink and I smoke weed — and so has the majority of this room. You finally got somebody that raises their hand saying, ‘I’m real, I’m like this, I do drink, I do smoke, now what?’ Guess what? We all have flaws and we all evolve as people. I’m 25 years old. You gotta remember, the weight of the world, sometimes, it feels like it’s on my shoulders. I don’t know how many people have been 25 years old and made $100 million in their life and can do whatever they want. I wanna see what you would do in my shoes.”

That makes Garcia four years younger than “Rainbow Head.”

“What kind of example are you for the younger generation?” Haney asked. “Talking about you drink, you smoke weed. The younger generation looks up to us, why are you trying to publicize it? Whatever you do behind closed doors, you do behind closed doors. It’s young kids watching us. There’s people watching us. What are you talking about?”

Garcia, 25, returned to the win column with an eighth-round knockout victory over Oscar Duarte late last year in Houston. As for Haney, also 25, he kept his undefeated record intact by outpointing Regis Prograis a few months back in San Francisco.

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