That’s Ryan Garcia’s perspective on what he views as the difference between Benn’s precautionary trip to the hospital and potentially something worse.

Though some questioned the veteran referee stopping the Garcia-Benn fight when he did Saturday night at T-Mobile Arena, Garcia gave Taylor credit for recognizing what awaited Benn could’ve been way worse in the second round. Benn slipped punches as Taylor stepped between them to stop their bout, but Garcia drilled him with a right hand that dropped the English challenger to his gloves and knees 45 seconds into the second round of their fight for Garcia’s WBC welterweight title.

Taylor would’ve been well within reason, according to Garcia, to halt the action as soon as Benn went down.

“They could've stopped it when he was on the ground,” Garcia said during his post-fight press conference. “He was out of it. I looked up in the eyes and he wasn’t even there. If it kept going – he’s too young to go through that. You would've seen a man unconscious on the floor. Unless you wanna see that, that’s fine. It’s the ref’s job to stop the fight when it needs to be done, to protect the fighter. He would've been outta there.”

Benn tried to fend off Garcia, but he never recovered from that devastating right hand.

The shorter fighter tried to get inside on Garcia because it was his only path to pulling off an upset. He just couldn’t deal with Garcia’s fast hands, which befuddled Benn as he came forward.

Benn (25-2, 14 KOs) suffered the first knockout defeat of his 10-year pro career. Many experts expected the hard-hitting Garcia to knock him out because Benn struggled so mightily to shrink his body below the welterweight limit of 147 pounds for the first time since April 2022.

Garcia (26-2, 21 KOs, 1 NC), The Ring’s No. 6 welterweight contender for a vacant championship, made his first defense of the WBC welterweight title he won from Mario Barrios on February 21 at T-Mobile Arena. The Victorville, California native beat Barrios by unanimous decision, despite that his right hand dropped San Antonio’s Barrios (29-3-2, 18 KOs) less than 30 seconds into their 12-round bout.