Gervonta Davis defeated Ryan Garcia by TKO in the seventh round

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By Alex Raskin Sports Editor for Dailymail.com 04:59 Apr 23 2023 Updated 06:27 Apr 23 2023

Gervonta Davis defeated Ryan Garcia in Las Vegas via seventh-round TKO. Saturday’Tank’ dropped Garcia in the second and was knocked down by a hardbody in the seventh.

Gervonta Davis was in trouble.

Ryan Garcia took down the undefeated boxing sensation in the second round of their highly anticipated catchweight bout on Saturday in Las Vegas. Things were so bad that Davis could only grab the taller Garcia in a desperate attempt to stay on his feet. Referee Thomas Taylor tried to separate the two, but nothing could protect Davis from Garcia, who looked set for an early knockout win.

Instead, it was Davis who dropped García with a left hand to the chin, instantly turning the fight around.

The Baltimore native would go on to dominate much of the next five rounds before Garcia seemingly quit in the seventh after a devastating liver shot from Davis.

Reeling, Garcia took a knee, appearing to give himself a quick break, but never got back to his feet and Davis improved to 29-0 with a TKO win.

Davis celebrates after Garcia took a knee in the seventh round and could not continue the fight, as Davis knocked out Garcia in the second round after his opponent started the Las Vegas bout well.

“He just doesn’t know where he is,” Davis told Showtime’s Jim Gray in an interview after the fight, echoing his frequent criticism of García’s style. I knew I was the smarter man. My coach would tell me at camp, “He’s going to go up with his head, so just shoot overhead.”

After the fight, word of the “liver” started popping up on Twitter as fans reacted to the brutal shot on Garcia’s midsection.

“It was definitely a good shot,” Davis (29-0, 27 KO) told Gray.

On the replay, his left body shot was absolutely devastating, but for the time being, Davis didn’t think he had won the fight.

“I thought he was going to wake up, but I like to play mind games, so when he was looking at me, I was looking at him trying to tell him ‘get up,’” Davis said. Then he shook his head and said, “No.”

As Garcia (23-1, 19 KOs) later told Gray: “I couldn’t get up.”

Gray asked Davis if he was now the face of boxing.

“I’m definitely the face of boxing,” said Davis. ‘Abso-f*** sharply.

“Everything about it was exciting,” he added. I was excited to be a part of this event. I remember going up in the golden gloves and seeing Floyd [Mayweather Jr.] fight at MGM. It was crazy. I just saw Rihanna perform at the Super Bowl, and I thought that would be me one day, and here we are.

Davis was briefly in trouble in the second round and needed to pick Garcia up a notch and Davis celebrated after defeating his opponent Garcia in their much anticipated welterweight match.

Garcia wasn’t bad against Davis.

He was a neck running Californian, showed excellent footwork while stopping 28-year-old Davis from getting around him, and even connected with some solid rights at sixth.

In fact, Garcia actually landed five more punches than Davis, who is known to be the minimalist in the ring.

But Davis landed an impressive 34 percent of his punches, which is pretty typical, while Garcia could only connect with 24 percent of his punches.

And Davis easily capitalized on Garcia’s aggression against him in the pivotal second round. When Garcia came up too high with a left, Davis was waiting and quickly put his opponent to the canvas.

But García’s biggest lesson came in lesson seven, when he failed to defend his torso as Davis came low and emptied his now-infamous liver syringe.

“I couldn’t breathe,” Garcia told Showtime. “I was going to get up again, but I couldn’t get up… He caught me with a good shot.” I don’t want to make any excuses here.. I couldn’t recover. … He caught me with a good body shot, crept up under me and caught me well.

Ryan Garcia grins at Gervonta Davis during the first innings of Saturday night’s game

The two rivals exchanged post-fight hugs for the cameras, quenching their weeks-long feud.

Things almost turned violent on Friday when Davis sparked a pay-per-view match with Garcia.

Subsequently, one of Garcia’s promoters, boxing legend Bernard Hopkins, was accused by Davis’ coach of cheating.

Standing on the perimeter of the close scuffle, Hopkins appeared to rub his hand on Davis’ back at one point, infuriating the Baltimore native and his camp.

“I had to slap the B-Hop vocal as soon as he touched me,” Davis wrote in a since-deleted tweet.

Then on Saturday morning, Davis’ trainer Calvin Ford promoted a theory on social media that Hopkins had been rubbing testosterone cream on the 28-year-old’s back in order to smear a drug test.

“Beware B hop coach and testosterone cream,” read a text message Ford shared on Instagram. “[It] It will make you test sloppy. Take care.’

But on Saturday in Las Vegas, cold heads prevailed in the post-fight exchange.

I know we talked a lot about the rubbish that led up to the fight, but [Davis] Garcia said: He knows what it is. Everything is love at the end of the day. It was an honor to be in the ring with such a great fighter and I respect him so much.

Hopkins’ hand could be seen on Davis’ lower back during Friday’s confrontation with GarciaFord promoted a theory on Instagram that Hopkins was rubbing testosterone cream on Davis.

There were no belts on the line Saturday, as the two fighters agreed to fight at 136 pounds.

There was a dehydration compensation clause for the fight, prohibiting boxers from gaining more than 10 pounds after the Friday weigh-in, and both reportedly weighed around 144 on Saturday morning.

Garcia’s future may be in the junior welterweight division, where the impressive 19-0 Josh Taylor awaits. Taylor is scheduled to fight former lightweight champion Teofimo Lopez in New York on June 10.

And if an agreement is not reached with the Briton, Taylor’s compatriot Jack Catterall (26-1) and the American Regis Progress (28-1) will make compelling opponents for Garcia, who won his only major victory against Luke Campbell.

Davis, meanwhile, has a number of options at lightweight, with undefeated Americans Devin Haney and Shakur Stephenson awaiting a major pay-per-view opportunity.

Haney has to fight Vasily Lomachenko first on May 20 – and that’s anything but a given – but the winner could find himself facing off against Davis.

Australian George Campos Jr could be another option for Davis down the road.

Whoever he fights next, Davis appears to have secured his place as one of the leading pay-per-viewers, and that would turn him into one of the biggest earners in the sport.

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