Esteemed former trainer Teddy Atlas has weighed in on Ryan Garcia’s loss to Gervonta Davis last weekend, and contrasted Garcia’s decision to take a knee and be counted out to Tyson Fury’s dramatic final round knockdown against Deontay Wilder back in 2018.
A seventh round body shot from ‘Tank’ proved to be too much for Garcia to stomach, as he could only watch on as referee Thomas Taylor counted him out in the biggest fight of his life.
Speaking on his podcast The Fight, Atlas claimed there was “something going on” in the head of ‘King Ry’ that led to him deciding not to try and beat the count.
“I go back to Tyson Fury. Him getting up in that fight made him a zillionaire! If he doesn’t get up, he’s not a zillionaire and he’s not Tyson Fury in the way that the world knows him now.”
“There’s always time to get up, no matter how many times you get knocked down or how badly you get beaten up.”
“If you’re not strong enough mentally, you’re not going to succeed at that level.”
“There was something going in on Garcia’s mind, and he made the decision. Some people are saying his body made it, but we are the generals of our body.”
Garcia actually started the contest in a positive fashion, but over committed early and was punished with a perfectly timed backhand from Davis that sending him crashing to the canvas in the second round.
From that moment on, he looked tentative and concerned about what was coming back, and Davis was able to assume control of the fight
Just as Garcia looked to to be regaining a foothold in the sixth round, Davis caught him with a body shot in the following stanza and that was all she wrote.