Gervonta Davis vs. Ryan Garcia Aftermath: How Tank killed the king

Last weekend, Gervonta Davis defeated Ryan Garcia in a masterpiece notching “Tank” a career best win. Davis battered Garcia to the body all night and eventually put Garcia away with a vicious body shot in the seventh round. So today, we are going to bask in the Aftermath of the big boxing bout and see how Davis systematically broke down Garcia and ultimately put him away!

Gervonta Davis: A Masterful Gameplan

It’s pretty apparent that Ryan Garcia is obsessed with his left hook. He spent all pre fight talking about how he would use it to knock out Gervonta Davis. The first round saw both Davis and Garcia playing it safe, feeling each other out. But come the second round, Garcia would come out firing heavy. Davis would not be deterred.

To start things off, we need to look at how Gervonta Davis controlled the lightning fast lead hand of Ryan Garcia. To do that, he kept his lead hand pinned to Garcia’s for most of the fight, as we see in the frame above. Doing this made Garcia gettin the hook off a hair slower, giving Davis the extra time to react, something very important going forward.

Controlling the lead hand comes with it’s perils but Davis knew that the lead hook was coming nearly every time he touched the lead hand of Garcia. He was essentially inviting Garcia saying, “Look! My lead hand is away and my chin is exposed for the lead hook. Why don’t you go ahead and throw it.” And Garcia would with near impunity until he was dropped

In the second round we see how Davis built off of controlling the hands and planned to use it to land his left, which as a southpaw, is his power hand. In the figure above, (1) Davis has that lead hand of Garcia checked and, as Davis intends, Garcia throws the lead hook. Feeling it and anticipating the lead hook, Davis (2) will dip under the hook and avoid the damage coming his way. (3) Now that Garcia has sold out on the hook, he’s over extended himself. Take a moment and look at that third frame and see just how far his arm traveled past his body and how exposed his chin is. If you can see it, you know Davis will see it too. He does and (4) he follows up with a left that floors Ryan Garcia and slows the tempo of the fight down.

After this knockdown, Garcia became much more reserved, feeling out the nuances of Davis. To counter this, Davis would slightly change up what he was doing as to keep Garcia following his lead. He would start to come forward then back out of exchanges. When Garcia picked up on that, Davis started to lean back and counter anything Garcia threw forcing Garcia to lead the dance.

With the southpaw versus orthodox matchup, I worried about Garcia’s ability to go to the body with the lead hook for Gervonta Davis. To counter this, Davis made sure to keep his hand on top of the lead hand of Garcia all night. This frustrated Garcia and let Davis be privy to when the lead hook was coming. Garcia struggled with the lead hand all night and it showed as Davis essentially handicapped Garcia and his best weapon.

Gervonta Davis showed a great sense of boxing in his fight with Garcia. He knew range, when to attack, when to clinch and put on a technical clinic against the younger Garcia. This was likely the biggest factor in the fight aside from the body work. Then again, body work falls under the umbrella of fight IQ and Davis made sure to show garcia just how smart a boxer can be. Garcia couldn’t rely on his speed and athleticism all night to beat a boxer like Davis.

Work the Body

The work to the body from Gervonta Davis ultimately put Ryan Garcia away. And while that well timed liver shot sealed the deal for Davis, it wasn’t the sole reason for the knockout. In fact, for the body shot to work, Davis had to in the body beforehand to wear Garcia down.

While a well placed body shot can shut the body down of an opponent. But often you’ll see it takes a body of work (pun absolutely intended) to truly shut down a fighter to the body. Davis went to this tactic and went often.

Ironically, we discussed in Beforemath about Garcia’s constant threat to the body as something Davis should watch out for. Having the body be the bane of Garcia’s existence against Davis was a beautiful read to have Davis go to the body more often than Garcia and get ahead on the damage there.

Building off of the two images we looked at from this fight already, we come to figure 3. Once again, now in round 5, (1) Davis is controlling the lead hand of Garcia. As before, (2) Garcia throws the lead hook. Davis will dip down and this time, pivot his rear foot to his left when (3) Garcia turns away. Garcia turns away because of that knockdown in round two. The knockdown is still ringing in his head and he wants to avoid another disastrous situation. Now covered up, the body of Garcia is wide open. Davis has (4) pivoted around and after throwing a left hook to the body, he will (5) land a solid right to the mid section.

In the end, Gervonta Davis was too much for Ryan Garcia and his inexperience. He was always destined to win this fight and now that he is victorious over a name like Garcia, Davis has nothing but large fights ahead. Wins like these are the path to greatness and Davis didn’t let the size of the stage or the weight of the moment topple him. He delivered and showed that he is every bit as deserving as the rest of the elite.

So what’s next? There are four big names for Gervonta Davis: Devin Haney, Vasyl Lomachenko, Shakur Stevenson, and George Kambosos Jr. These four are big time fights, ones that make the Garcia fight look like a tune up. They’ve punched their place in history. While I expect Davis to fight someone like Jojo Diaz next, there will be a collision course for undisputed at 135. Haney has all the belts and Lomachenko looks to get them back. Shakur Stevenson is the former 130 champ. Kambosos is a former champ. Davis would be the A-side for all of these now. Only time will tell where we go. One thing is for sure: Davis is the man to fight for a big payday after this weekend.