Gervonta Davis silenced his recent critics after his brutal stoppage victory against Hector Luis Garcia on Saturday night.
On Saturday 7th January, lightweight champion Gervonta Davis defended his WBA regular belt in what was labelled as an interim fight before his long-awaited and highly anticipated matchup with lightweight rival Ryan Garcia, a matchup which is rumoured to be taking place in April in Las Vegas.
Davis seemed to take a while to get going into the fight but started to pick up the rhythm about halfway through the bout. From then on, Davis began landing strings of big powerful punches, before the fight was stopped during the break in between the 8th and 9th rounds as Garcia claimed he was unable to see after a dangerous shot landed from Tank during the round.
The fight took place in the Capital One Arena in Washington, and this fight was marked as the first boxing match that saw the arena sell out since Mike Tyson made his final bow in the boxing ring as a professional back in 2005.
But the fight almost fell through just a couple of weeks before, as Gervonta Davis was arrested in Miami after allegedly hitting a woman with an alleged “closed-hand type slap”. The Baltimore native was released not long after a $1000 bail following a court hearing. Davis himself still believed that his fight with Garcia would still take place despite the recent occurrences.
Davis received a lot of boos from the crowd during his fight in Washington, and issues in the stands caused the referee to stop the fight midway through the eighth round as both fighters were distracted by activity taking place ringside. But the short break wasn’t enough for Garcia to regain his equilibrium, as he went back to his corner after the round with impaired vision, which even Gervonta himself says he was “a little surprised” about. Tank did claim however that he “knew he hurt him and knew he was hurt bad”.
Gervonta Davis is now reportedly scheduled to fight the current WBC interim lightweight champion Ryan Garcia on April 15th in Las Vegas. A bout that boxing fans have been craving for years is one of the many big fights which has been begged to take place this year, along with the undisputed matchups with heavyweight champions Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Uysk and welterweight champions Errol Spence Jr and Terence Crawford.
With Gervonta known as being one of the hardest punchers in the lightweight division, and Ryan Garcia being known as one of the fastest, Tank promises to wipe out two different Garcia’s back-to-back, as he now eyes up scheduled 136-pound matchup, which is promised to be the beginning of the super fight era in boxing that 2023 has been hyped up to be.
Photo: Inside Sport