By Dan Ambrose: Oscar De La Hoya respects Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis for choosing to fight Hector Luis Garcia as his tune-up opponent on January 7th to get him ready for his mega-bout against Golden Boy Promotions/DAZN/Instagram star Ryan Garcia on April 15th.
Oscar had very little praise for his fighter Ryan for choosing not to take a tune-up, and he feels this is a “mistake” on his part because it would have helped him.
De La Hoya admits that Hector Garcia (16-0, 10 KOs) isn’t a real tune-up because he’s a world champion and viewed as a threat to the unbeaten Tank Davis (27-0, 25 KOs), although Golden Boy views him as such.
For his part, the 23-year-old Ryan (23-0, 19 KOs) has changed his mind about facing Mercito Gesta in a warm-up fight on January 28th.
It’s possible that the grief that the Southern California native ‘Kingry’ Garcia was receiving from the boxing world for selecting the 35-year-old Gesta was ultimately too much for him to bear, so he opted not to take face the old journeyman southpaw.
Ryan choosing to fight Gesta, while Tank Davis took a real threat in Hector Garcia, made the young Kingry look like a cherry-picker, afraid to take risks and not wanting to mess up his cash-out of a lifetime. With Tank choosing a real threat, Ryan must face a credible opponent to dodge the enormous backlash.
“That’s the risk you have to take, and you have to give it up to Tank Davis,” said Oscar De La Hoya to Fighthype about Gervonta Davis taking a risky tune-up against Hector Luis Garcia on January 7th.
In the long run, Gervonta, 28, facing Hector Garcia on January 7th, will make his fight with Ryan bigger in April and increase his popularity.
The only downside of Tank fighting Hector is that it’s going to be shown on Showtime PPV, meaning that a lot of boxing fans won’t get a chance to view it.
“He’s confident in his abilities, he has a plan, he knows what he wants to do,” De La Hoya said about Tank. “I don’t think he’s calling it a tune-up; I think we’re all calling it a tune-up because it’s not Ryan Garcia.
“But, yeah, it’s a dangerous fight, it’s a fight that can possibly spoil the big plans we have for Ryan and Tank in April, but we’re crossing our fingers.”