LAS VEGAS — The Saturday night showdown of what many thought would be the biggest fight of the year, between Gervonta “Tank“ Davis and Ryan “King” Garcia, turned out to be more confirmation of the new face of boxing. Davis proved himself to be a machine as he put Garcia to the canvas twice, only to have him not respond after a body shot to the liver in the seventh round, registering a TKO victory for Davis.
Davis(29- 0, 27 KO) scored a left hook to Garcia’s(23-1, 19 KO) body backing him up then forcing the California native now with one blemish on his record, to take one knee in agony never getting up as the ref counted him out at to 10 at 1:44 of Round 7 before a sellout crowd of 20,842 at the T-Mobile Arena, at the time of the stoppage all three judges scored the bout 95-94, 97-92 and 97-92 all for Davis who was in command of the bout most of the evening and now without a doubt is the face of professional boxing.
“I didn’t think that body shot would end it, but I saw his facial expression and that’s what made me take it to him. now It was a good shot, for sure, “ said the 28-year-old Davis who is now the new King of Boxing. “I thought he was going to get up but I like to play mind games, so when he was looking at me, I was looking at him trying to tell him, ‘Get up!’. And he just shook his head, no.”
Garcia for his part early in the fight had a few impressive rallies in the first, second and sixth round that got his fan base excited about his chances to win but in the end, Davis proved to be the more talented, skilled, and experienced fighter that had an answer for everything that Garcia brought, forcing him to quit.
“I couldn’t breathe,” said Garcia, 24. “I was going to get back up, but I just couldn’t get up. … He just caught me with a good shot – I don’t want to make no excuses in here – … and I just couldn’t recover. … He caught me with a good body shot, snuck under me and caught me good.”
The night started surprisingly even with a slight edge to Garcia as he dominated the latter part of the first round and showed his power early in the second. But things changed quickly and dramatically when Garcia started to cut the ring off and move forward against Davis but failed to land a left hook. Davis responded with a vicious counter left hook of his own that sent Garcia to the canvas for the first time of the evening. Garcia was never able to fully recover from the first knockdown as Davis controlled the rest of the night and sits at the top of the mountain in the sport of boxing.
Coincidentally, Davis last bout against Hector Garcia ended similar as Garcia absorbed so much punishment from Davis that he was forced to not respond for the 8th round of their fightback on January 9th in Washington, DC.
Davis who has 29 wins 27 of them by KO and the last six straight consecutive fights have ended in a knockout for Davis as well looks to continue his reign over boxing and the lightweight division.
When asked by Showtime’s Jim Gray if he was the new face of boxing Davis replied “I’m definitely the face of boxing. Absolutely!”
(Additional reporting provided by Virginia Van Zandt)
