Matchroom promoter, Eddie Hearn, has had his say on the recent Gervonta Davis-Ryan Garcia fight – most importantly, how it ended.
In a sport where the biggest matchups rarely get made, Garcia and Davis received a huge amount of praise as both put their unbeaten records on the line to face off in their prime.
The fight itself never truly caught fire and went the way many predicted – Garcia starting strong but Davis’ power being the deciding factor.
‘King Ryan’ over committed in the second round and was punished with a perfectly timed left hand from ‘Tank’. From that moment Garcia looked nervous to let his hands go, conscious of what might come back. Just as it looked like Garcia was getting a foothold back into the fight he was caught with a shot to the body and took a knee.
Much has been made about what happened next. Garcia wasn’t bent over in agony as we’ve seen before with fighters on the receiving end of shots to the liver. Instead, he was looking at the referee as he counted, with most assuming he would get back to his feet at 8 or 9. That never happened and the fight was over.
In an interview with iFL TV, Hearn said Garcia ‘100%’ could have got up but perhaps made the sensible decision to stay down.
“He went on his knee and looked at the refs eyes and the ref said ‘8, 9, 10 you’re out’. He got straight up and walked to the corner. Could he have got up? 100%. Should he have got up? In a sensible world, absolutely not.
What Canelo Alvarez said yesterday, ‘as fighters we must get up’. Fighters aren’t like you and me. Would I have got up? No chance.”
The fight proved to be a huge commercial success, with reports of over 1 million pay-per-view buys – something fans hope will encourage the top fighters to face each other more often.