A former world champion has considered the effect a gruelling weight cut might have on Conor Benn’s performance against Ryan Garcia.

The pair will square off at Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena on September 12, with Garcia making a first defence of his WBC world welterweight title.

He claimed the belt by dethroning Mario Barrios, who he dropped and unanimously outpointed in arguably a career-best performance this past February.

Prior to that, Garcia suffered a points defeat to Rolando Romero in May 2025, yet this was his first official outing at 147lbs and arrived after he served a year-long doping ban.

Benn, meanwhile, is coming off consecutive points victories over faded versions of Chris Eubank Jr and Regis Prograis, having not fought at welterweight since 2022.

Back then, a second-round finish over Chris van Heerden followed his fourth-round stoppage of Chris Algieri, with ‘The Destroyer’ testing positive for banned substance clomifene later that year.

Algieri has now discussed his former opponent’s upcoming fight, telling ProBox TV that, after seeing a photo of Benn looking particularly drawn on social media, and with the 29-year-old having said this will be his last outing at 147lbs, he does not anticipate the challenger having a smooth encounter with the scales.

“Conor always trains really hard – we’ve seen that throughout his career. He was training hard two months ago, and he looked a little bit drawn even then.

“There’s still two weeks to go and we’re seeing pictures [of him looking drained], so it is worrisome. And when you’ve got a guy who’s three or four weeks out [from fight night] and is saying ‘this is my last time fighting in this weight class’, that tells you a lot.”

Algieri went on to make the point that Garcia and Benn should be at “polar-opposite ends of health”, with the defending champion, by contrast, making 147lbs relatively easily.

🚨 CONOR BENN LOOKING SERIOUSLY TRIM 👀🥊

Just 16 days out from his September 12th day with Ryan Garcia, Conor Benn looks incredibly trim, noticeably leaner than what we’ve been used to seeing from him over the last four years.@ConorNigel @RyanGarcia pic.twitter.com/voJuOBiMI7

— Boxing King Media (@boxingkingmedia) August 27, 2026