That’s all for tonight. Thanks as always for following along with us and be sure to check out the full report from tonight’s fight here.
Compubox’s punch statistics tell an interesting story. Davis landed 35 of 103 punches (34%) on the night, compared to 39 of 164 (23.9%) for Garcia. Neither fighter was overly effective with the jab. When it comes to power shots, Garcia landed 24 of 57 (42.1%). That’s typically a strong bellwether for victory. Problem is, Davis landed 30 of 63 power shots (47.6%). The first of those dropped Garcia in the second ... and the last of them closed the show in the seventh.
“I’m good,” Garcia says. “Tank is a great fighter. I take my hat off to him. I know we talked a lot of trash leading into the fight, but he knows what it is. It’s all love at the end of the day. I was honored to be in the ring with a great fighter and I respect him a lot. You know how the business goes. But I want to say to Tank, you’re a good man.”
“The first knockdown was just [Garcia] not knowing his placement,” Davis says. “I knew that I was the smaller guy, and my coach was telling me in camp that he’s going to come up with his head up, so just shoot over the top.”
Asked about the second knockdown, Davis said he was surprised it was decisive.
“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,” he says. “It was a good shot, for sure. 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.”
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“Everything about this was exciting,” Davis says. “I was excited to be a part of this event. I remember coming up in the Golden Gloves and seeing Floyd fight at the MGM. It was crazy. I actually just saw Rihanna perform at the Super Bowl, and I thought that’s going to be me one day. And we’re here.”
He adds: “The reality definitely matches the dream. But the job is never done until I retire so I’m going to keep my head down, stay humble and continue to work.”
Here’s a look at the official scorecard at the time of the stoppage. All three ringside judges had Davis ahead by scores of 58-56, 59-56 and 59-55. (The Guardian had it 58-55.)
“He just caught me with a good shot,” Garcia says. “I don’t want to make no excuses in here. I just couldn’t recover and that’s it. He caught me with a good body shot, snuck underneath and he caught me good.”
Asked what he might have done differently, Garcia says: “I should have pressured him a little bit more. I was giving him a little too much respect. I think that was my downfall.”
Gervonta Davis wins by seventh-round knockout!
Garcia lunges into the pocket and throws a flurry of punches with Davis trapped in the corner but none of them land. Davis then lands a devastating straight left hand to the ribs in the center of the ring that sends Garcia reeling backwards and down to one knee. Garcia stays there and referee Thomas Taylor gives the count ... and he doesn’t beat it! Taylor reaches 10 and waves it off. Gervonta Davis wins by knockout!
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Round 6
Another round for Davis as the gap in skill between these fighters becomes more and more clear.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Davis 10-9 Garcia (Davis 58-55 Garcia)
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Round 5
Garcia is doing well enough, all things considered. But he’s become more hestitant and reactive, kept off balance by Davis’s unpredictable array of feints as the Baltimore man continues to walk him down. Garcia lands a crisp right hand that seems to wobble Davis along the ropes, then another right hand upstairs the middle that brings the crowd to their feet. Chants of “Ry-an! Ry-an!” echo through the arena. A third big right for Garcia! Davis clips Garcia with an uppercut on the inside that Garcia takes well but could have been trouble if it landed flush. Garcia’s best round of the fight.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Davis 9-10 Garcia (Davis 48-46 Garcia)
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Round 4
Davis is backing Garcia up steadily, a complete reversal from the opening round. Garcia continues to paw with the jab, less assertive than before but enough to score. Garcia lands a sharp left to the body but Davis answers with a straight left. Davis, operating with unnerving patience, looks to be setting Garcia up for the left hand again.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Davis 10-9 Garcia (Davis 39-36 Garcia)
Round 3
An undeterred Garcia continues to press to open the third round. Tank appears to be sitting back and waiting for another opportunity to counter, but not at the expense of his punch output. Garcia lands a right but he’s looking a bit more tentative with the jab having now tasted Davis’s power.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Davis 10-9 Garcia (Davis 29-27 Garcia)
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Garcia down in round two!
Round 2
Garcia appears to hurt Davis with a big combination and the crowd is on their feet! Davis is holding on. They separate and Garcia lands a massive left hook and Davis is wrapping his arms around Garcia in a desperate attempt to clinch. Garcia is really going after Davis. And an overeager Garcia misses with a left hand and is dumped to the seat of his pants with a huge counter left from Davis against the run of play! The crowd erupts into a deafening roar! Garcia beats the count and seems OK. And the bell sounds. What a round!
Guardian’s unofficial score: Davis 10-8 Garcia (Davis 19-18 Garcia)
Round 1
And we’re off! Garcia is fast out of his corner, throwing jabs to the head and body as Davis circles in reverse and takes measure of his opponent. Garcia’s four-and-a-half-inch height advantage feels even more glaring in the ring tonight than at yesterday’s weigh-in. Davis has barely thrown a punch in this opening round, while the far-busier Garcia has yet to land anything of significance. Some scattered boos, but longtime observers of Davis are familiar with his slow starts.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Davis 9-10 Garcia (Davis 9-10 Garcia)
“It’s time for Gervonta Davis v Ryan Garcia!” says ring announcer Jimmy Lennon Jr. And with that Ryan Garcia makes the walk to the squared circle. He enters to Hillsong United’s Oceans (Where Feet May Fail), leaning into his Christian roots.
Next it’s Davis, who enters to Chief Keef’s Love Sosa, walking to the ring methodically with the Chicago rapper by his side. Seemingly everyone in the nearly full arena has their phones out to take a snapshot or a video.
The betting on tonight’s fight at the MGM Grand sports book has closed. We’re told the final odds were -210 for the favorite Davis (meaning a $210 wager would pay off $100) and +175 for the underdog Garcia (meaning a $100 bet would return $175).
Here’s a look at how Davis and Garcia measure up ahead of tonight’s main event. Garcia will enjoy advantages of four-and-a-half inches in height and two-and-a-half inches in reach. Both fighters’ formidable knockout percentages, say nothing of their unconcealed disdain for one another, suggest the affair won’t last the scheduled 12-round duration. The MGM Grand sports book appears to agree: the current odds of the fight going the distance are minus-275.
The issue of weight was always the biggest sticking point in the already painstaking negotiations to will this fight into existence. Garcia’s two most recent outings came at 140lbs, where Davis has fought just once in his career. Their compromise was a catchweight of 136lbs, one pound above the lightweight division limit. The contract also includes a same-day weigh-in for 10am on Saturday morning with a rehydration clause, stating that neither fighter can have gained more than 10lbs from when they stepped on the scales on Friday afternoon, lest they incur steep financial penalties.
The clause will likely mitigate Garcia’s advantage as the naturally bigger, stronger man by preventing him from eating and rehydrating freely as he normally would from Friday afternoon.
Both fighters came in under 136lbs on Friday afternoon and both came in under 146lbs at this morning’s weigh-in, which took place behind closed doors: Davis at 144.1lbs and Garcia at 144.9lbs.
Our Donald McRae spoke at length with Garcia ahead of tonight’s fight. The 24-year-old from Los Angeles, who has more 9.6m Instagram followers with 5.3m more on TikTok, opened up about his life in the glare of social media and the struggles with mental health that surfaced immediately following the signature win of his career to date.
It is to García’s immense credit that, on the cusp of the defining fight of his life, he does not shy away from confronting the ghosts of his and Davis’s past and explains why they often struggle with depression.
“We’re going into a ring in front of millions of people, putting our reputations on the line, and getting hit in the head,” García says quietly. “Of course you’re going to experience some mental health issues and that needs to be addressed way more. This is not normal. We’re not supposed to be doing this so it’s going to cause some mental health issues.”
García looks intently at the screen, his hands making fluttery shapes in front of the inky tattoos on his chest as he talks with fluidity and fire.
“We need to care for our fighters, especially the ones that are entertaining all of us. So I think I helped other fighters become more open in speaking about their mental health issues.”
Does talking about doubt and depression help García himself? “Of course – while always paying attention to myself every day and making sure that I’m keeping in balance.
“The more you hold it in, the more you’re going to act out. You’ve seen boxers act out and make bad decisions because they haven’t addressed their mental health issues. If you don’t, it bottles up inside and you end up making bad decisions. So it’s like a broken arm. You’ve got to give it the same attention because, before you know it, you could fall into a very bad place.”
We may be under way sooner than expected. David Morrell just delivered a sensational first-round knockout of Yamaguchi Falcao in defense of his secondary title belt at 168lbs. The 25-year-old Cuban connected with a devastating right hook toward the end of the opening frame and the referee immediately waved it off.
“I’m so excited,” Morrell said afterward. “This was a big moment and a big night for me, so a knockout in the first round is incredible. But this is boxing. First round, second round, I’m not worried when the knockout comes but I got it in the first round.”
Asked about his future plans, Morrell was quick to call out David Benavidez.
“David Benavidez is next,” he said. “Where is he? I want to fight Benavidez, man. He’s next, 100%. I don’t want any other guys at 168lbs. Just Benavidez. I respect Benavidez and his team, but inside the ring, I don’t respect nothing.”
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It wouldn’t be boxing if there weren’t at least a few uncomfortable underpinnings. Davis has moved the needle like few other American boxers in recent memory, winning belts at 126lbs, 130lbs and 135lbs while selling out arenas from coast to coast.
That dizzying ascent and shimmering brilliance has been enough to relegate a disturbing pattern of allegations – that he is a violent, unrepentant domestic abuser – to the margins of his narrative. But the 28-year-old Baltimore native faces the real prospect of jail time at a sentencing hearing less than two weeks today.
[Davis’s] bubble of impunity was finally punctured last month when he pleaded guilty in a Baltimore circuit court to four counts stemming from a hit-and-run crash in November 2020 which left four people hospitalized, including a pregnant woman. After the judge overseeing the case rejected a plea deal that would have allowed him to serve 60 days of unsupervised home detention, Davis faces the real prospect of jail time at his sentencing on 5 May.
Of course Davis is hardly the first boxer who has been licensed to fight with a serious criminal case and potential incarceration hanging over his head. If that’s the uncomfortable moral bargain that was necessary to get these bitter rivals into the ring together, it’s one that most boxing fans would leap at.
Here’s where we’re at. Two of the televised undercard fights are in the books with one left before the main event. Bektemir Melikuziev just won a wide 10-round decision over the faded Gabriel Rosado in their super middleweight bout following Elijah Garcia’s narrow points win over Kevin Salgado Zambrano in the opener.
Next up: David Morrell and Yamaguchi Falcao will face off in a 12-round matchup for Morrell’s secondary belt at 168lbs. Then Davis and Garcia will make their ringwalks.
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Preamble
Hello and welcome to Las Vegas for tonight’s fight between Gervonta Davis and Ryan Garcia. We’re inside the T-Mobile Arena for an eagerly awaited showdown between the two most popular boxers in the United States today: a pair of undefeated knockout merchants early in their primes, represented by different companies and broadcasters, all of whom have put aside their differences to make the fight the people have wanted for years.
No titles are on the line in tonight’s scheduled 12-round bout, which is taking place at a catchweight of 136lbs, but the stakes could hardly be higher. Tonight’s winner goes forward with his perfect record intact as the face of boxing in America – with all the benefits, bragging rights and earning potential that entails.
Here’s a bit more background on tonight’s main event:
Call it boxing’s first Gen-Z megafight, borne from a protracted feud that’s largely unfolded on social media over two years and leaning into a future where followers are listed on the tale of the tape alongside height, weight and reach.
But it’s also a credible throwback to a time when the best went across the street to fight the best regardless of promotional affiliation, rather than handpicking inferior opponents to inflate their win-loss ledger. And its significance only redoubles with the once-rosy prospects of a heavyweight unification blockbuster between Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk diminishing by the day and the even longer-awaited pound-for-pound showdown between Terence Crawford and Errol Spence Jr withering on the vine.
Davis, who sprang from abject poverty in west Baltimore and became the sport’s second-youngest world champion at just 22 years old, has moved the needle like few other US prize-fighters in recent memory, capturing belts at 126lbs, 130lbs and 135lbs while selling out arenas from coast to coast. A southpaw touched with concussive power in both hands known for overcoming quiet starts with a deliberate stalking style, he is undefeated in 29 professional fights with 27 knockouts and an emerging mainstream attraction with more than 4.7m followers on Instagram. When he broke the live gate record at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center last year, Madonna watched from ringside.
Garcia has been dogged by critics for his good looks, luxury-brand endorsements and enormous social-media reach – upwards of 9.6m Instagram followers with 5.3m more on TikTok – as a pretty-faced influencer from Orange County who happens to box. But in the seven years since the 15-time amateur champion entered the paying ranks, he’s stopped 20 of the 23 opponents he’s faced inside the distance, including all but one of the last 19. The winning cocktail has been straightforward enough: blinding hand speed and a devastating left hook. Questions over his mettle were answered when he came off the deck to stop Britain’s Luke Campbell, the 2012 Olympic champion who had gone the distance with Vasyl Lomachenko. But Campbell, for all he’s accomplished, is no Davis.
It’s nearly 7pm in Las Vegas and the undercard is moving along. The main event is expected to begin in a little more than one hour. Plenty to come between now and then.
Bryan will be here shortly. In the meantime here’s his report from Friday’s weigh-ins.
