By Kenneth Friedman: Unbeaten lightweight phenom Ryan Garcia says he’s turning the tables on knockout artist Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis by going after him to knock him out. Tank is the fight that Ryan (20-0, 17 KOs) wants, and he says he’s not going to be stopped from beating him.
The highly ranked 21-year-old Garcia is waiting for the world to reboot from the horrible coronavirus that is preventing him from taking the fights that he wants. Besides Tank Davis, Garcia has Jorge Linares, Luke Campbell and Devin Haney on his hit list. Those are all fights that will happen in the future, but they can’t take place right now with everything shutdown in boxing.
Ryan knows that he needs to add Tank Davis’ scalp to his resume to take his career to the next level. There are two names at 135 that will turn Kingry Garcia into a star overnight, and that’s Tank Davis and Vasiliy Lomachenko. What’s interesting is that neither of those fighters wants any part of Garcia right now.
Ryan Garcia waiting for the world to restart
“To be in my life every day, you’re going to have to be insane,” said Ryan Garcia to DAZN. “Waiting for the world to restart, and I’m back at it. With the war going on, the more you’ve got to stay focused, right?
You’ve got to stay focused no matter how many people know you and no matter how many people don’t know you, because then when you get too famous and too many people watching you if you remember how focused you were when nobody was watching you, then you should have no problem,” said Ryan Garcia.
Hopefully, for the sake of boxing, the coronavirus will disappear in the summer like U.S President Donald Trump is counting on. When the sport does restart, fighters like Ryan will have a lot of great options for interesting fights.
Kingry Garcia promises to be TRUE world champion
“Not a few people will get this, but if they do, kudos to you,” said Ryan. “What I do in every workout is to feel the rhythm and beat. I will be a true world champion.
“There are a lot of world champions. I will be a true world champion by beating a guy that everybody is fearful of, and those hard knockout artists, let’s see what I do though.
“And I am the best fighter in my division right now,” said Ryan Garcia on him being #1 at lightweight. “I will say that once I’m done conquering this division, I’ll conquer the next one, and the next one, and then my accomplishments will speak for themselves,” said Garcia.
There are currently 3 world champions at lightweight right now, and they are as follows:
- Vasiliy Lomachenko – WBA/WBC [Franchise]/WBO
- Teofimo Lopez – IBF
- Gervonta Davis – WBA [secondary]
Ryan wants to set himself apart from that bunch by beating all three and then moving up to 140 to unify the division. With the politics that permeates the sport of boxing, Ryan’s chances of fighting the Lomachenko vs. Teofimo fight are slim. Those are both Top Rank fighters, and that could be enough of a roadblock to keep Ryan from fighting either of them.
Additionally, Tank Davis is with Mayweather Promotions, and getting a fight against him could be just as difficult if not impossible. Mayweather Promotions wants to match Tank against Leo Santa Cruz next.
Ryan Garcia: I’m coming at Tank Davis
“Of course, Tanky [Gervonta Davis]. We call him ‘Tanky. I’m coming at him,” said Garcia in his goal of fighting Tank Davis. “It’s now the roles are reversed. I’m coming at him.
“He’s going to eat a lot of punches, which I don’t think he will take,” Garcia said of Davis. “But even if he does, he doesn’t have the heart. He doesn’t have the heart.
“He almost got bum-rushed by Gamboa on one leg. So imagine me, and I have him a little tired. You want to be disrespectful, watch this. I’m even more disrespectful. Anything you can do, I can do better,” said Garcia on Davis.
This isn’t going to be an easy fight for Ryan. Tank Davis will likely come into the contest in tip-top shape, and he’ll be looking to land his bread-and-butter uppercuts all night.
It shows a lot of courage on Ryan’s part that he’s coming after Gervonta, and not running from him the way the other fighters do. Ryan, 5’10”, is a lot taller than the 5’5″ Tank Davis, and that could play in his favor when the two fight it out.
For Davis to get near enough to throw, he’ll need to tiptoe through a minefield of left hooks from Garcia. Those left hooks could explode at any moment with Gervonta making the wrong move.
Gervonta Davis will get knocked out – Ryan Garcia
“You put a meme out about me with that picture, I’d have a better one because he literally copies Floyd [Mayweather] with everything he does. With the mannerism, he tries to say he’s ‘Pretty Boy’ Floyd, I’ll keep fighting until I knock him out. I only want to knock people out. You need a train to kill me.
“You ain’t going to kill me looking 60 pounds over your weight class,” said Ryan in taking a shot at Tank Davis looking fat in between fights. “How are you going to kill me? If anything, I’m going to flatten you on the canvas. It’s for the love of the sport. I have no real beef with nobody. I just do this for the love of the sport,” said Ryan Garcia.
The weight that Davis has been putting on between each and every fight, it’s something to think about. If WBA ‘regular’ lightweight champion Davis has to put himself through a fat farm to get ready for a title defense against Ryan, he could come up short. What we really are seeing is Davis short-circuiting his career in the same way Ricky Hatton and Fernando Vargas did by getting big in between fights.
Davis, 25, was getting tagged something fierce in his last fight against 38-year-old Yuriorkis Gamboa on December 28, and he was so incredibly lucky that the Cuban fighter was injured. If this were a younger and uninjured Gamboa that Davis fought that night, he probably would have lost to him.
