He experienced it when Tony Bellew moved down from heavyweight to cruiserweight to face Oleksandr Usyk. Conor Benn finds himself on the same dangerous journey, moving back down to welterweight after four years fighting above that weight class.

Benn will have to cut down to 147 pounds when he faces Garcia for his WBC welterweight title Saturday at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Their 12-round bout will stream on Paramount+ in the United States and on DAZN across the UK and Ireland.

Bellew moved up to heavyweight and scored two stoppage victories over former cruiserweight and heavyweight champion David Haye. He then had to move back down to cruiserweight to face Usyk just over two years after his last fight in that division. Usyk was the undisputed titleholder at the time.

While Bellew held his own for much of the fight, Usyk scored an eighth-round stoppage victory in what was Bellew’s final fight. Coldwell, who doesn't work with Benn, has many of the same worries for the Essex fighter that he had for Bellew.

“I wouldn't want to put a fighter in that position,” Coldwell told The Ring. “I don't think it was a sensible thing for him coming back down to welterweight in the first place. The only comparison I can make where I've had a fighter boxing at a weight division up, or quite a lot higher, and then coming back down, was Bellew when he boxed Usyk. …

"He was up weighing around the heavyweight mark for a good two to three years maybe, and then when Usyk called his name, my worry straight away when he said to me, he says, ‘What do you think, coach?’

“The first thing that came out of my mouth was fight him at heavyweight because you've not made a cruiserweight for so long. And being 35 is going to hurt you going down to cruiserweight. I was worried about his engine, and I was worried about his punch resistance going back down to that weight.”

Benn’s last fight at welterweight was in April 2022, when he scored a second-round stoppage of Chris Van Heerden. He weighed more than 150 pounds for his next four fights, including a pair of middleweight bouts against Chris Eubank Jr. Benn (25-1, 14 KOs) lost the first fight by unanimous decision in April of last year, but avenged the defeat seven months later when he dropped Eubank twice and outpointed him by a unanimous decision.

Benn, 29, is coming off a unanimous decision victory over two-time 140-pound titleholder Regis Prograis on April 11 at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. The Englishman weighed 149.6 pounds for the 10-round bout, for which the fighters agreed to a 150-pound limit.

“He needs to turn it into a dog fight,” Coldwell said. “He needs to get Ryan's feet almost upright and on his chest, so Ryan's got no perches from his legs to be able to fight him on the inside, and he can grind him down, wear him down, and look to physically try and bully him.

"Whether he can do that or not with Garcia, I don't know, because Garcia actually is a big guy.“

Among the British trainer's concerns is whether Benn could maximize his training in preparation for Garcia (25-2, 20 KOs, 1 NC) while coming back down to welterweight. He also noted the negative effect losing a lot of weight can have on a fighter’s reflexes and ability to take a punch.

“It's in training that you need to be able to push yourself to get to the fight fitness," Coldwell said. "You need to be coherent and be able to drill, practice certain situations in sparring [and] things that you've been doing on the pads; you need to put into practice.

"As you get depleted, the brain kind of goes a little bit more lethargic, so you might not get the best out of yourself in each session.”

Garcia, 28, won the WBC welterweight title with a unanimous decision over Mario Barrios on February 21 at T-Mobile Arena. Garcia, The Ring’s No. 6-ranked welterweight, dropped Barrios in the first 30 seconds of the fight before coasting to a one-sided victory.

If the Victorville, California, native is in the right frame of mind, Coldwell believes he should have the upper hand. And given the style matchup and uncertainty surrounding both fighters, Coldwell believes Garcia vs. Benn will be a “really exciting fight.”

“Unless Garcia is not on his game, then I feel that he controls everything that happens in that fight because he's far too good a boxer,” Coldwell said. “Benn is too raw, and [Garcia] punches very hard and very fast.

"People saying, 'Oh, Benn needs to get on his chest. Benn needs to close range.’ Yeah, but if he's getting hurt on the way in, then that slows the fighter down. It stops them from coming in as often. And then once Garcia has that bit of time and distance, then it's an easy fight for him.”