Jorge Linares believes that Ryan Garcia has taken a break from boxing in order to work on his game after being put down by Luke Campbell.
Garcia defeated Campbell in February this year to earn the WBC interim championship but then appeared to duck the fight the outright champion Devin Haney, while putting forward fights with Manny Pacquiao and Gervonta Davis, before ultimately agreeing to fight Javier Fortuna.
However he has since announced that he is taking time away from boxing, which some have speculated is linked to his past discussion of problems with anxiety.
Linares, however, suggested a more prosaic reason - that he needed to iron out weaknesses in his game.
“I saw the news from Ryan Garcia that he don’t want to fight Javier Fortuna," he told the DAZN Boxing Show.
"I was thinking he got Corona, but you know, I think he needs time to be more ready to go to different levels.
“I think after this fight with Luke Campbell, everybody was shocked, because I was fighting with Luke Campbell I didn’t feel any punch from him, and Ryan Garcia got [put] down with a very nice punch from Luke Campbell, so now I was thinking he got a lot of problems about that.
“More mentality. He gets a good punch from Luke Campbell and he takes this fight with Fortuna, which is very dangerous for him because Fortuna has a better punch than Luke Campbell.”