By: Sean Crose
During an impressive interview with Ariel Helwani on Wednesday, Ryan Garcia weighed in on Gervonta “Tank” Davis’ stoppage of Hector Luis Garcia last weekend, calling the bout a “usual Tank fight.” According to Garcia, Davis is “very selective on his punches. He needs to get in a good position to land the shots that he’s devastating with.” Garcia also stated his belief that Davis works to wear his opponent’s down. “I think that he relies on guys to burn out,” Garcia told Helwani. “Guys with no power, usually when you’re putting pressure on them their punches loose snap and they lose focus and that’s exactly what he did and he got the guy out of there.”
As for Davis’ opponent: “the guy didn’t make adjustments to keep his right hand up,” said Garcia, “and he got caught with that left over the top. Its pretty obvious what Tank was going for, but Tank to me fought a great fight. He understands the game and I thought he did great.” Not that Garcia wasn’t uneasy about Davis risking their promised superfight by taking what some believed was a tuneup. “I was definitely worried,” Garcia admitted. “I was worried because I went through so many hoops to try to make this fight happen for the fans after so much talking… he can hurt his hand, things can just happen.”
Yet Garcia also said that he himself wanted to fight before the new year. “I wanted to fight in October of 2022 to keep the momentum going,” he said. “They (Team Davis) told me, they were very adamant: ‘We’re not going to fight you if you take that fight in December,'” Although Garcia feels it’s ironic that Davis got to have a fight in January, he still feels it was important to do what he had to in order for a fight with Davis to get made. “I truly believe I’ll beat him,” Garcia said.
Helwani asked outright if it was true Garcia was going to fight Davis on April 15, as has been reported. “At this point for my knowledge, yeah it is,” said Garcia. “I think they’re just working on the undercard…I’m ready. I’ve been dying for this fight and I’ve given my all to make it happen.” Garcia emphasized that he’s done all he’s supposed to in order to make the Davis match a reality. “I’ve cleared everything,” he said. “The only thing that could happen is something on Tank’s side.” With that being said, Garcia indicated he feels Davis is going to go through with the highly anticipated bout. “He knows how important this is,” Garcia said.