By Dane McGuire
‘Tank’ Davis is now the face of boxing’s current era after taking out Ryan Garcia, leaving him bent at the knee in the seventh round of their encounter.
Garcia was aggressive early through the first two rounds—Davis is a notoriously slow starter–but the second is where the fight turned. Garcia was put down with a flush shot to the head. Davis then found his range and got the timing down and didn’t look back.
Davis had predicted the seventh would be the round he got it done and he was on the money.
“I’m definitely the face of boxing,” Davis said. “Abso-f******-lutely.”
“Everything about this was exciting. 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,” Davis said.
“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. Me predicting the 7th round KO was me just trying to get in his head. I really don’t know until I actually get in there with my opponent, but once I got in there with him I felt like skill-wise, it all matched.”
…“I thought he was going to get up,” Davis said and then described eye contact between the rivals. “I like to play mind games. When he looked at me, I looked at him like I was saying, ‘Get up.’ He shook his head, saying, ‘no.’”
In the seventh, a clean blast to the solar plexus ended Garcia’s night, resulting in his first career loss. In the immediate aftermath both showed nothing but respect, still Garcia talked about a rematch in the future.
“I’m good. 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,” Garcia said.
“He just caught me with a good shot,” Garcia said. “I don’t want to make no excuses in here. He caught me with a good shot and I just couldn’t recover, and that’s it, that’s all I’ve got to say. … I’m not going to say nothing. I couldn’t breathe.”
“I think I should have pressured him a little harder near the ropes. I was giving him a little bit too much respect and I think that was my downfall. I think I gave him a little too much respect in the ring.”
Garcia then announced plans to drop to 140 pounds