dpGarcia is proven at the top level and enters as the favourite, bringing blinding hand speed and a fight-ending left hook.
But Nigel Benn believes he has mapped out the exact antidote to Garcia’s firepower. He says his son should attack Garcia using suffocating, bobbing aggression – the kind that Nigel used to blow out Iran Barkley in 1990.
“When he goes under pressure, what happens? He falls and his heart doesn’t go into it,” Nigel says.
“For the first time, [Conor] is actually sitting there listening. He has to be not the destroyer, he has to be the Dark Destroyer. Controlled aggression.
“Don’t give him room. Roll under his punches, left hook to the body, left hook to the head. He knows what to do.”
The hostile Vegas spotlight, meanwhile, evokes memories of Benn senior’s ferocious 1995 battle with Gerald McClellan.
“Everybody had me to be blown out within round three. Exactly the same thing as what they do with Conor,” Nigel says. “And I know he’s going to prevail.”
Win, lose or draw, Nigel insists this time he will walk away for good and let Conor do his own thing.
“I can walk out of that arena, go home, and be with my family, and that’s it,” Nigel says.
Whether Nigel finally catches that one-way flight back to Sydney is another matter.
If Conor leaves Las Vegas with the WBC belt around his waist, you would not bet against his father being back for defence number one.
