By Jim Calfa: Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya says he’ll be ready to make a fight between Ryan Garcia and WBA lightweight champion Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis once he takes care of his opponent Emmanuel Tagoe on April 9th.
(Photo credit: Liliana Heredia / Golden Boy)
Needless to say, Ryan (21-0, 18 KOs) will need to defeat Tagoe (32-1, 15 KO) and look good for De La Hoya to consider letting him move forward to a fight against the unbeaten Tank Davis.
Ryan hasn’t fought in 15 months, so he will need to look exceptional against the 33-year-old Tagoe for De La Hoya to give him the green light to take on Tank.
To have a chance of fighting the unbeaten former three-division world champion Tank Davis, Ryan will need to obliterate Tagoe because he can’t struggle against this level of opposition.
Ryan didn’t look great in his last fight against Luke Campbell in January 2021. Campbell dropped Ryan hard in the second round and might have done more damage if he had more power.
“I just saw that he’s calm and at peace. I think that’s the most important thing that I saw from him,” said Oscar De La Hoya to Fight Hub TV about Ryan Garcia.
“Just seeing him at peace and happy was everything,” said De La Hoya.
“I always thought that Mayweather was going a great job with him and Al Haymon,” said Oscar in reacting to Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis saying he would be completing his last fight in his contract with Mayweather Promotions on May 28th against Rolando ‘Rolly’ Romero.
“Yeah, if they’re serious about making this fight. Al Haymon or whoever is in charge [of Tank Davis] give me a call from promoter to promoter, we can make this fight happen,” said De La Hoya about a fight between Ryan Garcia and Tank Davis.
“We want it, but first things first. April 9th, but look, Ryan wants the big fights. I think if everything goes well on April 9th, I’ll be watching very carefully, obviously as an expert myself.
“There’s no reason why we shouldn’t make that fight happen very soon,” said De La Hoya on the Ryan Garcia vs. Tank Davis fight.
Whoever winds up as Tank’s new promoter, they’ll likely be more than willing to match him against Ryan Garcia. It could be a problem, though, if Tank signs with Top Rank, as that would mean he would be fighting on ESPN.
With Ryan competing on DAZN, it would complicate things in the same way we see recently with the failed negotiations for a fight between Jaime Munguia and Jermall Charlo.
