By Dan Ambrose: Boxing great Julio Cesar Chavez predicts Ryan Garcia will be knocked out by Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis when they eventually meet up.
Chavez believes that the former three-division world champion Tank Davis (27-0, 25 KOs) is a very good fighter ad will KO Ryan.
Many boxing fans would agree with Chavez about his opinion because it’s arguably criminal to let the inexperienced 23-year-old Golden Boy-promoted Kingry Garcia (23-0, 19 KOs) face an experienced three-division world champion like Gervonta at this stage of his career.
Even if Tank Davis were to agree to Ryan’s request to have their fight at 140, it’s a dreadful mismatch on paper. Ryan’s wins over contenders fighters Javier Fortuna, Emmanuel Tagoe, and Luke Campbell were an example of cherry-picking at its finest being done on his behalf by Golden boy.
Instead of Golden Boy matching Ryan against talented contenders at 135 like Isaac ‘Pitbull’ Cruz, Michel Rivera, Vasyl Lomachenko or Jeremiah Nakathilia, they set up fights with Fortuna, Tagoe & Campbell. I can’t say I blame Golden Boy. Ryan would likely lose to all of those fighters.
“No, I don’t watch bull s***,” said Julio Cesar Chavez to Fight Hub TV when asked if he saw Ryan Garcia fight Javier Fortuna last weekend.
“I have good esteem of him [Ryan]. He’s a good friend and good people,” Chavez continued. “He called me on the phone the day of the fight, but I didn’t see his fight truthfully.
“Well, he’s screwed then,” said Chavez when told that Ryan Garcia said that titles don’t matter anymore and have no substance.
“It’s going to go very bad for him,” said Julio when asked how Ryan will do when he faces Gervonta Davis. “Gervonta, I’ve seen him fight, but I haven’t analyzed him, but he’s a hell of a fighter with all respect. I think he’s going to knock out Ryan Garcia,” said Chavez.
“He’s yelling for Tank Davis at 140 lbs. It’s a big difference,” said Teddy Atlas on The Fight about Ryan Garcia wanting Gervonta to come up to 140 to fight him.
“He [Ryan] knows he has an edge on him at 140, and I’ll tell you why. He’s got a bigger skeleton. He’s only 23 years old and is still filling out, and it shows. Tank is young too, but he doesn’t have that skeleton to fill the way that Garcia does, and he’s filling out. He might wind up at the end of his career at 147.
“He’s big, and he was much bigger than Fortuna; you could see it. I’d like to know what he weighed when he got in the ring. I’d like to know what he and Fortuna weighed in the ring individually when they got in the ring. It would be interesting.
With that skeleton and able to fill in at 23, he’s going to have an edge against these lightweights, and he’s going to vacate that weight class. I think he’s being smart because I don’t think there’s the same talent [at light welterweight],” said Atlas.
