Boxing: Ryan Garcia insists he wants the fight with Tank Davis. Does he really?

There’s all this fan desire for a Tank Davis v. Ryan Garcia fight but it’s not likely to happen in year 2021.  Considering the vicissitudes of boxing, you have to consider the possibility that it may never happen. 

 Garcia did fight once in January and, in spite of getting dumped for the first time in his career, he took care of Luke Campbell with a hurting body shot to advance his record to 21-0. 

In April  2021, Golden Boy announced that their star would be fighting Javier Fortuna in July of this year, but then they pulled out of the fight citing Garcia’s bouts of anxiety and depression. 

 I’m not denying that Ryan Garcia hasn’t reached mega-star level as a public personality. He’s handsome, entertaining,  and humongously popular within the youngish social media circles —  but I point out that he just hasn’t attained it through boxing alone as have the true legends of the sport. 

The mental health issues are acknowledged all over Garcia’s social media postings so I’m not giving away any delicate secrets here.  It stands to reason that Garcia, a talented boxer  , would have tremendous anxieties in dealing with his vast cross-over popularity and his level of success in the ring.  He’s an ascendant competitor, brought along sensibly by his promotion team, and the big question that everyone keeps asking is whether he can handle fighting dangerous top-level fighters like Tank Davis.  That is still an open question in some circles. 

Asked about the prospect of a Davis v. Garcia fight, Leonard Ellerbe went public with a Twitter post (see above) indicating he tried to make that fight with Golden Boy in March 2021 and was told “they were exploring other options” and were going to make a Ryan Garcia fight with someone other than Tank Davis.

Was this ducking or smart management?  Fight fans can be awfully mean people, including yours truly, but it’s very easy to see it’s difficult for Ryan Garcia (or any person) to keep his marbles together in the money and fame environment grown up around him.  Boxing isn’t Hollywood and it would cease to be if it becomes that way. 

  The fact is   that Ryan Garcia can’t have it both ways.  He can’t go around saying he desperately wants a fight with Tank Davis (again, see above)  and say, at the same time, that his management won’t let him take that fight out of concern for his fragile mental condition. 

Am I reading too much between the lines of Garcia’s response to Ellerbe’s post?  I don’t think so, and I’m reminded of an old Pennsylvania prison challenge where one con tries to dominate the other by confronting him with this:

          “Do you want to fight, fuck, or climb a tree?”

They ain’t no trees in a boxing ring incidentally.

 S

Danny Jacobs v Gabriel Rosado : The Bad Blood is Real

Here it is November.  I was about to kick my DAZN to the curb for lack of evidence when suddenly my boxing radar started showing some blips.  Tonight  Brooklyn’s Danny Jacobs will meet Philadelphia’s Gabriel Rosado at the Hard Rock Casino in Hollywood Florida.  

I will be happy if the fight proves to be even half as entertaining as their press conference. Trash talk is routine these days   but in some instances the disrespect and dislike are real.  This is real.  

  For Danny Jacobs, it’s a gateway fight.   Aside from his loss to Pirog, Jacobs lost close fights with Canelo and with GGG.  A solid win over Rosado would put him back where he needs to be. 

 There’s no  doubt Jacobs is at the top level in spite of the three losses and he feels certain he could win against GGG and/or Canelo if given another chance. He is perhaps less sure of Canelo.

  This is a matchup that has some people denigrating the fight because conventional thinking is that the two fighters are not on the same level.  Jacobs is the heavy favorite mainly because Rosado has twelve losses to his record. 

Danny Jacobs has three, one of them to a 12-0  but largely unknown Russian fighter named Dmitry Pirog who hasn’t been seen in the ring for almost ten years.   Prelims start at 8 at the Hard Rock Casino in Hollywood Florida. 

There’s some interesting action on the undercard too.  One that I’m particularly  interest is rather off-the-grid but  I’m marching to a different drum anyway.  There’s a 33 year old named Something Majidov.  While there seems to be a sizable cohort of Kazak  fighters (GGG, being the most well known) I don’t think we’ve seen an Azeri heavyweight contender. 

Majidov is interesting, not only because he once beat Anthony Joshua to a world amateur title, but also because he has a big punch.  His pro resume is light, consisting only of two previous bouts, but his style is far from amateurish.    

Film at 11 - more to follow . . .  

Congrats to Teofimo Lopez, Bob Arum, and ESPN

 By now you've heard there's a new sheriff in the 135 pound boxing rankings and his name is Teofimo Lopez.  Lots of people outside boxing won't recognize the name but that's about to change as he's taken over the division and is looking to step up to a higher weight  where he says he's more comfortable. Many  viewers mentioned he did look bigger than Lomachenko -- true, but not so much.  

Just as impressive as Lopez' domination of the fight was the viewer count approached three million.  This occurs even while NFL game viewers has declined by 8 or 10 percent, depending on whose numbers you use.

Equally impressive was Bob Arum's announcement before the fight that the broadcast on ESPN would be absolutely free.  This was both a smart and generous move on Arum's part.  

It was also good for the sport.  Lopez was the 4 to 1 underdog and it seemed for a while that, amongst all my boxing buddies, that only me and Floyd Mayweather Jr. picked Lopez to win.  Okay, I'm exaggerating because there was Lopez' dad too.  And his mom?

I wasn't entirely solid in my pick -- I didn't think it would go the distance. I did however pick Lopez because I'd watched him before and noticed a little known fact.  Lopez is known as a killer puncher having knocked out nearly all of his opponents but I noticed he could box too.  Even more do I appreciate that he's the type of throwback guy who will fight anyone among the new crop of New Generation Boxers.  

I don't want to throw shade on Sergei Lomachenko -- he's a great boxer with an interesting arsenal.  None of it was working in the Lopez fight  as many observers thought he was too idle in the early going and didn't get started until it was too late and his only chance would be for a knockout.  

Both fighters showed good chins so that didn't become an issue. However, it must be recognized that this was a big upset.  

I want to say also that my pick of Lopez wasn't simply because I liked him; it was also because Loma had become something of a sacred cow. Even more galling to me was that celebrity sportswriters like Stephen Smith and Max Kellerman were always expounding about how Loma was "special."  Special, special, special, I heard it a hundred times. 

I don't like sacred cows.  This is boxing where no one is special  and the king is always dead.  Who was Buster Douglas?  Who was Cassius Clay in the first Sonny Liston fight? 

Congrats to Teofimo Lopez and Bob Arum. It's interesting to note that there was no rematch clause in the contract signed. I'm good with that.  The reason for no rematch was that Loma's team was completely certain their guy would win and so there was no reason to put it in the contract.  They didn't even expect it to be close.