By Matt Lieberman: Ryan Garcia is pulling for Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis to put Hector Luis Garcia asleep by knocking him out cold this Saturday night in what he believes will have a rebound effect of making their fight “bigger” in April when he faces the Baltimore native on Showtime PPV.
Tank has been knocking out a lot of his opponents, but Ryan (23-0, 19 KOs) wants him to specifically knock the 31-year-old Hector (16-0, 10 KOs) out cold.
Ryan is taking a passive role in his April fight with Tank (27-0, 25 KOs) being made bigger by choosing to let him do all the hard work while he takes a free ride by sitting on the sidelines, electing not to risk getting beaten and losing out on a massive payday of a lifetime.
The 24-year-old Ryan Garcia had talked of briefly taking a tune-up fight of his own in January against the faded old veteran Mercito Gesta, but he changed his mind, deciding it was better to let Tank fight while he waits for the smoke to clear.
Gervonta’s trainer Calvin Ford has his theory for why he believes Ryan opted not to take a tune-up, as he hints that he might have been using PEDs and didn’t want to risk getting popped.
Whatever the reason why Ryan decided against taking a warm-up fight, he’s putting all the responsibility for creating interest in their clash on the shoulders of Tank, which is a lazy way of doing things but so be it.
Hopefully, this doesn’t become a habit for Ryan moving forward because he can’t play it safe with his career while his opponents take all the risks, putting their records on the line while he sits inactive or he faces washed-up old guys like Javier Fortuna or obscure bottom level fringe contenders.
“I want Tank to knock [Hector Luis Garcia] out cold. It will make out fight even bigger,” said Ryan Garcia via ESPN.
“Hector is holding the keys to successful,” said trainer Calvin Ford to ESNEWS about Hector Luis Garcia. “You see what he’s wearing on his shirt. He got ‘Fighter of the Year,’ so that’s his motivation.
“Hector said they sparred twice, so they didn’t show the second tape. They just put up what they want,” said Ford, reacting to Devin Haney saying that he kicked Hector Garcia out of camp because he couldn’t keep up with him when they sparred in 2021 before his fight with Joseph ‘Jojo’ Diaz.
“Hector said in his interview that the first time he got with him, he said he didn’t look good with him. In the second time he sparred with him, he looked good.
“I just worry about how we’re going to perform for the fans that night. The way I look at it, Hector is going to come and put his best foot forward. His coach says he’s going to knock Tank out in the fifth round.
“This is his first fight without Mayweather Promotions involved,” said Ford about Gervonta. “It doesn’t feel funny. It just feels different. Tank understands this is a goal to get to where he’s trying to go at. So we got to do a great job doing it.
“He said, ‘More power to him,'” said Ford about what Floyd Mayweather Jr said about Tank Davis going out on his own without his promotional company.
“I just seen Dana White had some problems. I was all over the Internet, and I didn’t see nothing about it,” said Ford.