What’s Next For Ryan Garcia?

It came as no surprise that Ryan Garcia was knocked out by Gervonta Davis when the two met in front of a sold out T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Rumors of a hungry, weight-drained, undertrained Garcia swirled around the prefight shenanigan circus. Despite his undeniable speed and power, the negative effects of his training decisions eventually surpassed his talents against the supremely skilled Tank Davis.

There were some suprises though. When Garcia got hit by Tank in the second round, he got up, for instance. Ever since Ryan Garcia got tagged by Luke Campbell and dropped for the first time in his career, many have speculated on whether he’d have the cojones to stand up if he got hit like that by tank. For showing this kind of courage, Garcia has earned the respect of millions.

But talent and bravery can only take you so far. Eventually, you’ve got to put that work in, and it didn’t seem like Garcia had the focus to commit to the biggest fight of his life. Whether or not this is a symptom of his mental health woes should be relevant to fight fans. Brain injuries can cause problems with depression and motivation, and we’ve seen Garcia hit pretty hard already.

It’s ironic, considering that he took it upon himself to call Davis mentally deficient during the prefight circus. Although the comment was directed at Gervonta, Garcia’s ignorant comments elevated a dangerous and untrue stereotype about Black people. Garcia didn’t go into detail in his thoughts on this, besides to say that Davis was “simply low I.Q.”

Despite Garcia’s attempt at mischaracterizing Davis as somehow unintelligent, it was exactly the intelligence and composure of Davis that allowed him to get inside the long reach of Garcia and dish out some serious punishment. It was Davis’ determination and focus, priceless mental advantages in the sport of boxing, that allowed him to diligently train and prepare contingencies for every scenario in the ring.

Ryan Garcia Admits He Didn’t Train

Ryan Garcia’s excuses in the post-fight press conference were a bit of a shock. Hopefully, those who had recently become Garcia fans due to his valiant effort in the fight weren’t paying much attention by that point. With the resounding victory, Davis improves to 29(27)-0, while Garcia is now forced to somehow cope with his first loss. Adding to the sting of defeat must be the realization that he didn’t really put forth his best effort.

This isn’t to imply that Ryan Garcia quit in the seventh round; it’s clear to all those that were in attendance that Garcia desperately wanted to win that fight. But desire falls short where preparation is supposed to pick up, and Ryan Garcia wasn’t ready for the precisely applied power shots of Tank Davis. Those preparations should’ve been made in the gym. Garcia acknowledged his lack of focus during training camp in the preparation for his fight with Davis.

“Tank’s a great fighter. It would take someone a little more disciplined than me to beat him,” the formerly undefeated superstar admitted in the press conference.

Wanting to win on fight night is one thing; maintaining desperate focus on wanting to win the same fight every night for months, or sometimes even years, is entirely another. With Garcia’s talent, speed, power, and physical size, there’s plenty of hope left for the continuation of a successful and lucrative professional prizefighting career. It still remains to be seen whether or not he has the ability to develop the improvements necessary to compete with the truly elite in whichever division he lands in after this fall.