By Jack Tiernan: Tim Bradley wants Ryan Garcia to KO Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis in their possible April 15th fight. The former two-division world champion Bradley, heading for the boxing Hall of Fame, isn’t a fan of Tank Davis (28-0, 26 KOs), chiefly because of his past legal problems.
In an interview last weekend, Bradley says the WBA ‘regular’ lightweight champion Tank Davis is a “piece of s**t” because of his domestic disputes, and he wants Ryan (23-0, 19 KOs) to knock the 28-year-old down a peg.
With that said, Bradley acknowledges that Ryan has his work cut out for him because Gervonta has excellent punching power and talent. Ryan has been dropped in the past by non-puncher Luke Campbell and struggled mightily in fights against Carlos Morales and Jayson Velez.
While those fights occurred a relatively long time ago, we haven’t seen an upward progression of Ryan being put in with increasingly better opposition.
Instead, Golden Boy Promotions have matched Ryan with the same level of opposition since 2018 without throwing him in the deep end against better fighters like Frank Martin, Shakur Stevenson, Devin Haney, Isaac Cruz, William Zepeda, or Edwin De Los Santos.
“I’m not a fan of Tank. I’m not a fan of the way he operates outside the ring. I want Ryan Garcia to knock his a** out,” said Tim Bradley to Fight Hub TV about his hopes of a Ryan Garcia KO victory over Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis when or if they fight this year.
“I think he’s a piece of s**t. You put your hands on a woman like that; you’re a piece of s**t. You’re not a man,” said Bradley.
Regardless of how Bradley personally feels about Gervonta, that’s not going to help the 24-year-old Ryan Garcia find his way to victory against the Baltimore native.
Ryan is too inherently flawed for him to beat a fighter of Tank’s pedigree, and it’s telling that the Southern California native seemingly lacked the confidence even to take a tune-up fight against the faded 35-year-old Mercito Gesta.
Ryan hasn’t fought upper-tier opposition, and it seems obvious that his entire career has just been one slow ramp-up for a cash-out fight to get a huge payday without needing to prove himself by facing high-caliber opposition.
Many boxing fans feel that the only reason Ryan is getting this fight with Tank Davis is because of his 9 million Instagram followers.