Keith Thurman says Ryan Garcia was getting “beaten up” by Tank Davis

By Boxing News - 06/03/2023 - Comments

By Adam Baskin: Keith Thurman agrees with Ryan Garcia quitting in his loss to Gervonta Davis, saying that the Golden Boy flagship fighter was getting “beaten up.

‘One Time’ Thurman says it’s better for Ryan to have quit so he can go look at his paycheck afterward. Ryan reportedly got a guaranteed $15 million for the Tank fight. It’s troubling that Thurman is openly advocating Ryan’s quit job against Gervonta because that sends the wrong message to other fighters that it’s fine for them to abandon the fight when the going gets tough.

Thurman says he’s not mad at Ryan (23-1, 19 KOs) for deciding to take a knee and bow out of the fight rather than toughing it out to show the fans that he could stay in there with Tank.

It wouldn’t have been so bad if Ryan were rolling around on the canvas after going down, but at least no one would argue that he quit. But with the serene look on Ryan’s face, while the referee was counting him out, he didn’t look troubled at all.

Keith probably isn’t the ideal guy to be co-signing Ryan quitting against Tank because, for all intents and purposes, he quit the sport after a grueling fight with Danny Garcia in 2017. He didn’t fight Errol Spence, Terence Crawford, and a whole bunch of other guys

“I’m not mad at the kid. Look, by the time he got hit with that body
shot, [he was done]. When he got up, his nose was all bloody,” said Keith Thurman to Fight Hub TV about Ryan Garcia being counted out in the seventh round against Gervonta Davis.

“You are now getting beat up. Would you like to get beat up more is the question. You want to go home. Would you like to go do the after-party and go look at your check? I think looking at the [pay] check is nicer than getting your [a**] whooped for however many more rounds because you want to show the world how tough you are.

“I’m sorry, this is this should be Ryan Garcia’s statement. I’m sorry, I’m not sorry. You got paid and got busted up. All those people that want to criticize him. Go do his job. I’m not saying that you can’t talk about that issue. You’re not always going to get it [blood], baby.

“This is a very tough Sport, and sometimes you got to live to fight another day, and I’m not mad at him for what he did. I wish the young man a good career. I think he has the potential to grow, and I mean, he’s always been talented.

“Canelo is one of the few fighters in the past several years that got defeated by a tremendous fighter and showed us better performances after that. So let’s see if Ryan Garcia is one of those kinds of guys or not. He switched trainers too.

“He’s training now with Derrick James. Derek has a hell of a stable now. Anthony Joshua, Errol Spence, Ryan, and Charlo. So I think being around those guys will really help Ryan as well.

“Yeah, you know you got to want it, and being around other great fighters in that atmosphere to get your head right. Let’s see how it works out for the man,” said Thurman.

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