By Jake Tiernan: Canelo Alvarez says Ryan Garcia should have gotten up from his body shot knockdown against Gervonta Davis.
Canelo feels that fighters that get dropped should get back up and continue fighting, but Ryan failed to do that and was counted out while looking calmly at the referee, without any hint of pain on his face in the seventh round on April 22nd.
Promoter Eddie Hearn also feels that Ryan (23-1, 19 KOs) should have gotten up because he thinks he wasn’t rolling around on the canvas in pain afteer the body shot. Hearn notes that when the referee reached 10, Ryan walked to his corner and didn’t look bad.
“It was a good fight. I thought it was going to be a little more action. Gervonta is too good,” said Canelo Alvarez to Fight Hub TV when asked about his thoughts on the Gervonta Davis vs. Ryan Garcia contest.
“That hurts a lot, but we are fighters. We need to get up,” Canelo said about Ryan failing to get up in the seventh round.
It will be difficult for Ryan Garcia to shake the quitter tag that he’s now been given by boxing fans because people will expect him to do the same thing when the going gets tough and he’s thrown in the deep end again by his promoters.
Many boxing fans don’t realize that this is the first time Ryan was matched against a quality opponent during his seven-year pro career. All the rest of the guys he’s fought were fringe-level opposition.
Ryan Garcia reflecting on the Gervonta Davis defeat on Instagram today… pic.twitter.com/9QbmpmudMg
— Michael Benson (@MichaelBensonn) May 3, 2023
“The word ‘quitting’ means you no longer want to go on. You choose another option,” said Eddie Hearn to Boxing Social when asked if Ryan Garcia quit against Gervonta Davis.
“I don’t think that as a non-fighter, what these guys go through in the ring. But if you want to be real, quitting is not in that situation is never something that should be used against you.
“I would have done the same thing. You would have done the same thing. 99% of the people would have done the same thing [as Ryan]. He’s got a damaged rib.
Ryan should have got up
“I’m sure he’s winded, but when you look at the referees’ eyes and watch him count to ten in front of you and get up and walk to your corner like that. You have to try and get up unless you don’t want to, and the sensible thing is to not.
“I would have definitely stayed down, so I can’t criticize him in that respect. I’m just saying that you got to get up. If you’re a fighter, you’ve got to get up. You’ve got to get up when your half bent over.
“Let’s talk about Ryan Garcia’s body shot of Luke Campbell. He folded him in half. He wasn’t on his knee going, ‘Eight, nine, ten. Okay, I’m up.’ He was rolling around on the floor and basically couldn’t breathe. So maybe Ryan should have rolled around on the floor.
“You get up. Even if you can’t stand up, you get up. If you’re looking at the ref, count to ten, and you’re on one knee, and when he gets to ten, you walk back to your corner.
“You could see on that dialogue [between Ryan and his ex-trainer Joe Goosen] that he had a damaged rib, and he didn’t want to carry on because of his damage. No problem with that.
“But when fighters say, ‘That’s out of order saying that he quit. Don’t say he quit. You don’t know s**t about boxing,’ but he’s not wrong to do it but he did. He did the sensible thing, but he still quit. But he didn’t want to carry on anymore. I get that. I would have done the same thing, but there’s a lot of fighters that would have got up off that knee,” said Hearn.
Golden Boy was with Ryan at post-fight pressor
“Oscar [De La Hoya] was at the dinner,” said Hearn about Golden Boy Promotions CEO De La Hoya not attending Ryan Garcia’s post-fight press conference after his loss to Gervonta Davis. “You let your fighter go to the press conference.
“What people don’t realize, to be fair to Golden Boy, is Eric Gomez was at the pressor. So it wasn’t like he wasn’t represented by Golden Boy, but bad look not to go to the pressor, especially when you’re at dinner.
“The other thing that was interesting was didn’t they accuse Benard Hopkins of rubbing or having steroid cream? You know what? In this horrible sport and business that we work in, it makes you think.
“If someone has that steroid cream and they rub it on someone’s shoulder, does he fail the drug test? If that’s the case, that’s as scary ass s**t. That’s rubbish about Bernard, but I’m saying in general. That’s frightening.
“I don’t know his relationship,” said Hearn when asked about his thoughts on Ryan Garcia leaving his trainer Joe Goosen by firing him. “I know that what Ryan does is natural. I don’t know how close they were in terms of tactics, in terms of training, and in terms of everything.
“I would like to see Ryan work closer with a coach rather than just hitting pads with his brother and probably Joe watching the pads and going, ‘What the f**k is going on here?'” said Hearn.
