By Allan Fox: Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis’ coach Calvin Ford says that with everything happening to his fighter in the media, he “feels sorry” for his opponent Hector Luis Garcia for their fight on Saturday night, on Showtime PPV.
Tank (27-0, 25 KOs) will take his frustration out on Hector (16-0, 10 KOs) and vent when they meet in the headliner on the Premier Boxing Champion event at the Capitol One Arena in Washington, D.C.
Whatever the 28-year-old Gervonta must do to motivate him, he will need to because he cannot lose this fight if he wants to face Ryan Garcia in April for a massive bout that will have ramifications for his ten-year professional career.
Gervonta will be fighting for the first time since leaving Floyd Mayweather Jr’s promotional company. If he loses, boxing fans will point fingers and say that without Floyd’s protection in terms of the soft match-making he was doing, Tank fell apart immediately.
“I’m still in the coaching mode,” said Gervonta Davis’ trainer Calvin Ford to Fighthype. “The main thing is I look at history. History shows that when you’ve got a big fight before the fight, pay attention to the big fight,” said Ford about him wanting Gervonta to focus on Hector rather than his April showdown with Ryan Garcia.
“With the things that have been going on in the media with Tank, I just feel sorry for him. They keep putting gasoline on the fire. I don’t train Tank for knockouts. In this particular fight, all the energy and stuff that he had in his mind, take it out on the person in the ring.
“He got nothing to lose,” Ford said about Hector Garcia. “That’s going to be his strongest access to me. This is a different level, so we have to see.
“We’re going to treat it like we can’t go nowhere unless we do our job in the ring.
“Demond Nicholson and Andrade because both of them are in the same lane right now,” said Ford when asked what undercard fight appeals to him to most. “Demond is trying to get to it. Andrade is trying to get to the rest of the PBC fights.
“I’m going with Demond. Demond’s my guy,” Ford said about who he favors in the Andrade vs. Nicholson fight. “I know Demond. He’s been asking for this opportunity. When he fought Berlanga, he had a hiccup. It wasn’t the fight itself. It was himself.
“Now everything is lined up. He’s at home, a big fight again, a big name. So he has all the buttons in place. He just got to do what he got to do.
“That’s his thing. I think he gets a kick out of it,” said Ford about Gervonta going back and forth with Conor Benn on social media. “His [Tank] knockout ration is just like Deontay Wilder.
“We’re just making sure that he’s doing what he’s supposed to do,” said Ford when asked how he keeps Tank Davis from falling in love with his power. “He doesn’t really be looking for the knockouts.
“In camp, I put in his head, I like the punishment. I say, ‘Let me see you punish a guy. Can you punish a man?’
“The beast,” said Ford when asked about welterweight contender Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis, who is fighting on the undercard on Saturday night. “He’s ready for all of them [Errol Spence Jr and Terence Crawford].
“The only thing ‘Boots’ is missing is a name-guy. Let’s be real. That’s all he’s missing. Listen, [Keith] Thurman isn’t going to fight him, so that tells me something. It would be an interesting fight because that’s his name guy.
“Once he gets past his name guy, it’ll tell us all that he’s ready. I’ll always give Boots the edge because I’ve watched him since he was a kid. I know all these fighters since they were a kid. I grew up with all of them.
“So when they see me, they say, ‘That’s coach Calvin right there.’ It’s not like it’s new. That’s why I always stay neutral with all of them because I grew up with all of them.
“I don’t know because Spence & Crawford are the #1 guy. Noticed how I say, ‘#1,’ because they haven’t fought each other. It’s going to happen. You’ve got to remember that a lot of strings have to be [pulled]. It’s going to happen.
“If you go back and look at my track record, it happens. Money talks, bull s**t walks,” said Ford.
