Ryan Garcia Says He Did Go Into Gervonta Davis Fight With A Rib Injury
Ryan Garcia admits he did enter his last fight against Gervonta Davis with an injury.
In the seventh round, Davis landed a big body shot that Garcia went down to a knee and couldn’t get back up, so the fight was stopped. In the corner, the mic picked up Garcia telling his former trainer Joe Goossen that Davis hit him in the same area where Garcia suffered a sparring injury two weeks before.
Now, speaking on Brian Custer’s The Last Stand podcast, Ryan Garcia confirmed he did go into that fight with a rib injury.
“I did go in the ring with a rib injury, a separated rib from sparring,” Garcia told Custer (h/t BoxingScene). “I was dehydrated and it was like one of the first shots of sparring. I didn’t even get hit hard. My rib just [sunk] in and I had to go to the hospital, spent there some time, and I couldn’t even run. I couldn’t do anything. It was about two weeks before the fight. There was nothing that I could do. I decided that I wasn’t gonna pull out. Too much time [had] been put into this and too much things went into making this fight happen. I wasn’t gonna pull out.”
Along with the rib injury, Ryan Garcia says the weight cut also played a role in his performance.
Although some boxers would have pulled out, Garcia says he never thought out of that as he admits boxing was boring until he made the mega fight with Davis.
“On top of [the rib injury], I had to cut the weight, so I had everything stacked against me,” Garcia said. “But it wasn’t – I made this not about me. I made it about the sport. And people are gonna say, you know, bad things about that, but for me, I always loved the sport with all my heart. And I was bored of the sport. Don’t get me wrong, the sport was boring. Nobody was fighting each other. It was trash. There was no energy, and then I brought the energy back to life in one night. In Vegas, it finally felt like boxing was back on fire for a day, for a night, finally.”
Ryan Garcia is set to return to the ring on Saturday against Oscar Duarte.
Do you think Ryan Garcia should have pulled out?
