After losing his fight professional fight, one of the biggest stars in the sport has vowed to ‘never lose again’.
Back in April, Ryan Garcia tasted defeat for the very first time when he was stopped by Gervonta Davis in the biggest blockbuster fight of the year so far.
Davis knocked Garcia down early in the fight then caught ‘King Ry’ with a subtle body shot in the seventh round. Garcia stayed down on one knee and only rose to his feet after the referee counted him out, prompting some within the sport to brand him a quitter.
Speaking to DAZN about what it was like to suffer defeat, Garcia says he ‘didn’t care’ at the time.
“It’s disappointing because I didn’t feel anything. I didn’t feel one moment of sadness. People said it was because of the money but it wasn’t because of that. It’s because I stopped caring about winning in general, my competitive edge was just not there.
It was like ‘I did a big fight, great’. I know what was missing, it was me fed up of all the s**t I had to go through and me just not giving a rats a**e about anything any more. I was already pissed off about all the weight cut and I was mad because nobody from my team took that serious. So when I lost I just didn’t give a s**t.
I came in with a separated rib, all this stuff and I didn’t care. Looking back I’m like ‘I should care’.”
Garcia said the loss later made him realise he needed to make big changes and he wasn’t prepared to lose again.
“A little later I was like ‘s**t, I did lose’. It happened and it hit me, ‘I’m never going to lose again’.
I don’t want to lose again. I’m going to erase the things I was doing, I was not being a professional. Sometimes you’ve got to lose to realise you’ve got make a change. It’s not fun and games, this is a real sport where you can get hurt.”
Garcia returns to the ring on December 2 against Oscar Duarte.