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Don’t expect the two top stars of the lightweight division to face each other anytime soon, if Ryan Garcia’s latest remarks are anything to go by.
The Instagram star from Victorville, Calif. recently stated that he does not expect to face Baltimore’s Gervonta Davis inside the ring in the foreseeable future, a matchup that Garcia seemed to be keen on only as recently as this summer. A Davis-Garcia fight would pit two of the biggest names of the younger generation in boxing; Davis is 26, while Garcia is 23.
Talk of the potential fight ramped up to new levels after Garcia’s dramatic stoppage of Luke Campbell on Jan. 2 at the American Airlines Center in Dallas. After the fight, Garcia not only called out Davis but promised to knock him out inside two rounds.
Soon afterward, however, Garcia, who is promoted by Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions, pivoted to a potential Manny Pacquiao fight (which, of course, never materialized). When those talks fizzled, Garcia directed his attention to a scheduled contest against Javier Fortuna on July 9 only to pull out of the bout two months prior citing mental health issues. (Javier would go on to lose a decision to Joseph Diaz). Garcia (21-0, 18 KOs) has recently hinted he will be returning to the ring in the fall. One thing is for certain, though, it won’t involve Davis (25-0, 24 KOs).
“I do beat Davis, I do,” Garcia said on a recent Instagram Live session when asked about his nemesis. “But he’s not going to fight anybody outside of Mayweather Promotions, what Floyd said.
“Gervonta’s just never going to fight, I don’t think, anybody, that [the public] really want him to fight. You guys gotta stop commenting about that because Gervonta is never going to find anybody that you really want him to fight. So let’s just kill that right now. Floyd gave that away.”
Garcia was most likely referring to remarks that Floyd Mayweather, Davis’ promoter, made after Davis knocked out Mario Barrios in their 140-pound fight at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta on June 26.
“We keep everything in-house, Mayweather Promotions, PBC, we’re all one family,” Mayweather said at the time during the post-fight press conference in response to a question about Davis’ future fights. “We’re not going to go nowhere and make another company great. So, we got plenty of fighters at 140, 135, 130, and we’ll continue to fight the fighters we got to fight.”
“[Davis] definitely doesn’t want to fight,” Garcia continued. “[He] never did want to fight anybody tough. It’s just not in his nature, I guess.”