Former world champion Carl Frampton believes Ryan Garcia took the easy way out in his knockout loss to Gervonta Davis.
Davis stopped Garcia with a body shot in the seventh round of their highly-anticipated grudge fight last weekend. 'Tank' had dropped Garcia in the second round with a big left hand and the knockout artist kept his unbeaten record intact with the impressive win. But Frampton thinks Garcia could have got up before the 10 count but made the decision to quit whilst he was down on the canvas.
“He did get up. He got up as soon as it got to 10, 11, he was up, he was on his feet. He made a conscious decision that, ‘I don’t want any more of this,’ and I understand — he may have been in a bit of pain, but it was just, I didn’t like it. I didn’t like how he quit. He quit, that’s the top and bottom," Frampton said on The MMA Hour.
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"He's on his knee looking at the referee and I think he’s going to get up at eight or nine, and he stays on his knee and then he stands up as soon as the 10-count is reached. I was just a bit disappointed in that. I always thought ‘Tank’ was the favourite in the fight and he just showed his class. I think he’s one of the most exciting fighters that we have in boxing at the moment.”
Garcia was encouraged by UFC star Conor McGregor to pursue a rematch with Davis after his defeat, but the 24-year-old plans to move up to 140lb for his next fight instead. Garcia insisted that he was hurt worse in his 2021 fight against Luke Campbell than he was against Davis, despite being able to get up from the canvas and beat Campbell by stoppage.
Frampton added of Garcia: "I was a bit disappointed in how Garcia approached the fight. Not a lot happened in the first round, but it looked like he was having a decent second round, and then he walked into a good shot and he got dropped and he just looked really hesitant from that point in.
"He didn’t want to engage, and then at the end, the knee... it was just disappointing for me. I know what it’s like to take a body shot. It’s a horrible sensation, but when you take a real body shot, you don’t have a decision to make. You’re involuntarily lying on the floor, you’re rolling around the floor, it’s severe, just in excruciating pain."
