By Allan Fox: Ryan Garcia was in fine form during Wednesday’s roundtable, talking up his hoped-for fight with Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis rather than his headliner match against Javier Fortuna on July 16th on DAZN at the Crypto Arena in Los Angeles.
As seldom as Ryan mentioned Fortuna, you would think that his next fight is against Gervonta because he scarcely brought up his journeyman opponent.
It was a textbook display of clout-chasing by the unbeaten lightweight contender Ryan Garcia (22-0, 18 KOs), using Tank’s name to help attract interest in his lesser fight against the recently defeated fringe contender Fortuna (37-3-1, 26 KOs) next month.
With the high number of times the 23-year-old Ryan name-dropped Tank Davis’ name, you would think that he was fighting him next rather than the 33-year-old Fortuna, who was recently beaten soundly by Joseph ‘Jojo’ Diaz Jr.
Ryan seemed well-coached with his skills at mentioning Gervonta’s name throughout the roundtable to help attract interest in his lackluster fight against Fortuna, which fans aren’t excited about.
If you’re Tank Davis, you got to feel a little weird about the neediness bordering desperation that Ryan is showing, wanting a fight against him. Ryan seems desperate for the Tank fight, and you got to wonder what’s going on with him internally.
As timid as Ryan Garcia looked in his last fight against the light-hitting Emmanuel Tagoe, he can’t possibly think he’ll beat Tank Davis. Is it just about Ryan campaigning for a massive cash-out payday? That could be it.
“It’s not that I want to fight him so bad. It’s not like I’m desperate to fight him,” said Ryan Garcia when asked why he’s so desperate to fight Gervonta Davis during his virtual press conference on Wednesday.
“I’m hungry to show the world that I’m the best fighter in the division. I feel like he’s the best fighter other than myself in the division,” Ryan Garcia continued in talking about Tank Davis rather than his next opponent Fortuna.
“With speed, power, accuracy, and IQ, I think he’s up there, but I’m that much better that I’m going to separate myself, and I’m going to make it look very easy when I’m in the ring with him.
“I’m going to show people I’m more than meets the idea and that I’m a much better fighter than you may perceive it as. When you’re in the ring with me, you feel it right away, and I want to show Gervonta Davis that personally, too.
“I think he’s very confident that he can beat me, so I want him to show me why. I’m done with the talking and ready to handle him in the ring.
“If he doesn’t do it, we can see he didn’t want it. I’m really in a good place where I want to destroy him and take my spot as the face of boxing. I think that whoever wins that fight will become the face of boxing after that,” said Ryan sounding disconnected from reality.
“In reflecting back on it, maybe a little bit because we could have easily made that fight happen,” said Ryan when asked if he has any regrets about not making the fight with Devin Haney when he was still fighting on DAZN, and he was his mandatory challenger to his WBC belt.
“When I saw the opportunity to fight Gervonta Davis, that’s what I wanted to pursue, of course, because that’s the bigger fight and the more dangerous [one]. I enjoy fights like that.
“Devin is a very skilled fighter, but in terms of the success of the event and how exciting it would be for me in the ring, it wasn’t at that time. But now, looking back at it now, I could have had a shot to take that [WBC] title and fought Kambosos for all those titles.
“But I missed that opportunity. There are pros and cons to every decision. All you can do is move forward and think about the next best move you can make,” said Ryan.
