This weekend, Gervonta Davis and Ryan Garcia collide in a fight to crown a new face of American boxing. It’s a fascinating clash of two unbeaten stars in their prime – bound by knockout power and a shared sense of destiny. But very little else.
‘Two guys coming from two sides of the world,’ as Davis put it. East Coast vs West Coast. Southpaw vs orthodox. Silent assassin vs the loudmouth with lightning hands. Tank vs King Ry.
Davis, 28, has risen from a broken home and the drug-riddled projects of Baltimore. He was slated to star in The Wire; ‘Coach Calvin’ was the inspiration behind a character in the acclaimed police drama.
But Davis insists the real-life script he was handed as a child – parents on drugs, gang violence, orphanages and death – remains grittier than any show and trouble has continued to stalk him since. Over recent years, Tank has been accused of assault, domestic violence and a hit-and-run.
Garcia, 24, meanwhile, is a flash, sharp-tongued social media sensation whose greatest threats festered inside his own mind. Brands flocked towards this cocky, concussive puncher who boasts nearly 10million followers on Instagram. But Garcia considered walking away after depression took hold. Now he and Davis stand at the door of superstardom.
Here, DailyMail.com digs deeper into the bout…
Gervonta Davis (left) and Ryan Garcia are set to face off in a huge Las Vegas bout on Saturday
Garcia, meanwhile, is a social media sensation with nearly 10million followers on Instagram
Davis swears at a photographer while attending a party at a nightclub in Atlanta, Georgia
Calvin Ford’s first taste of sweet science came behind bars. He helped himself to double portions.
Ford had been convicted in 1988 for his role as a soldier in the drugs trade of Baltimore. His co-defendant was Reggie Gross who, in the years before heading inside for triple murder, had fought Mike Tyson and Frank Bruno.
The pair grew closer in prison and Gross steered Ford towards boxing. Before long, though, he had honed another craft: baking. To this day, Ford considers cooking to be an art. But cinnamon rolls and pound cake? He believes there’s a science to that.
And over a decade, Ford ran his own bakery behind bars. It made him more than $10,000. Those first steps into boxing, however, unlocked greater riches still and put Ford on a path that stretches towards the Las Vegas strip this Saturday night.
Not long after leaving prison, Ford began training kids and bumped into a seven-year-old Davis. Garcia was the same age when, under the sun of Southern California, he began to fight, too.
Even their mentors are former foes. Davis has stepped out of the shadow of Floyd Mayweather, who plucked him from obscurity and crowned him heir apparent. Garcia is still guided by Oscar De La Hoya, the Mexican-American Golden Boy of his own generation. Where else to settle their differences than the Vegas strip? What better tonic after a grim few months for boxing?
Garcia has two children with two different women. They are Rylie (right) and Bela (left)
Andrea Celina Garcia is the mother of Bela, but her and Garcia don’t appear to be together
Davis, meanwhile has one daughter – Giovanna Thalia – who even has her own Instagram page
As fight night approaches, tensions are coming to the boil. The two fighters traded insults at this week’s press conference. They ‘agreed’ to stake their entire fight purse on the outcome.
Their teams squabbled over the 136lb catchweight and rehydration clauses.
Come Saturday, however, the talk will stop and the coronation will begin.
De La Hoya first stumbled across Garcia on Instagram. This young kid from Victorville, California, has harnessed the power of self-promotion through social media but only after climbing the well-worn ladder through America’s amateur ranks. Garcia trained in a makeshift shed, built by his father, Henry. He racked up 215 wins (against only 15 defeats) and collected 15 national titles before turning professional at 17.
After a flurry of early knockouts on both sides of the Mexican-American border, Garcia was invited down to De La Hoya’s office at Golden Boy Promotions. The next half-decade has brought only victory. All that time, however, question marks have lingered: once you scrape away all the hype and star appeal, how much substance remains? How much grit sits beneath the pretty face?
‘You don’t beat the guys I beat if all I’m doing is sitting around making YouTube videos all day,’ Garcia told DailyMail.com this week.
‘Social media seemed like a no-brainer to me at the time – everybody is getting big, why wouldn’t I do it?’
He added: ‘I’m part of that generation so it was easy for me to decide to take myself on to that journey… video games, boxing, anything I did, I was just a kid that found a way to be great.’
Garcia’s other daughter, Rylie, is with model Catherine Priscilla Gamez (pictured)
Garcia poses with fellow online star Hasbulla for a recent social media post, liked 785k times
Davis’ daughter Giovanna is with Vanessa Posso, who herself has 726,000 Instagram followers
Davis poses with the WBA lightweight championship belt after beating Rolando Romero
Garcia has a theory: all the doubts and misconceptions are rooted in jealousy. He has likened it to the bible and the story of Cain and Abel.
Certainly, in recent years, the 24-year-old has proven his mettle both in and out of the ring.
Back in 2021, Garcia took on British Olympic gold medalist Luke Campbell. He was carried from the dressing room on a throne.
Beneath the bombast, however, Campbell sensed it would be the first serious test of Garcia’s heart.
‘I knew he was dangerous,’ Campbell told DailyMail.com. ‘But what I thought? When I hit him and I hurt him… the flash boy isn’t going to want to know.’
In the second round, Campbell landed a looping left hand that sent Garcia into uncharted waters.
‘The first time anyone goes down on the canvas, there is a little bit of panic,’ Campbell said. ‘But I looked at him when he was being counted, I looked at his corner and they seemed more worried than him.’
That’s when Campbell knew he had erred.
‘I was wrong,’ he adds. ‘He gritted his teeth and he wanted more… I’ve never seen anyone bounce up like that before in my life.’
Garcia is led by Oscar de la Hoya, the Mexican-American Golden Boy of his own generation
Davis is coached by Calvin Ford, a man who has himself overcome much adversity in his life
Then, in round seven, Garcia sent his trademark left hook into Campbell’s ribs.
It was a brutal shot to end a night that taught Garcia a few important lessons. Among them? That throne was a bad idea.
Two more victories have followed but only after Garcia faced his greatest test yet.
Away from the cameras, the young fighter began to spiral towards dark places. ‘Demons started creeping in and depression hit me. It came out of nowhere,’ Garcia said recently. He thought he was losing it. He suffered panic attacks and had doctors check his heart.
‘It was so dark, it felt like I was in hell… it was torture.’
Nights like this never entered his mind.
‘Somehow, someway, I was hoping that the pain and suffering I was feeling would just go away. I didn’t care about boxing, I didn’t care about anything,’ Garcia told DailyMail.com.
‘I didn’t think I was going to box anymore but I just kept fighting and I just didn’t bring myself to do anything horribly wrong to myself – I’m thankful for that… some of your darkest moments teach you the biggest lessons in life and it taught me so much.’
‘King Ryan’ has also dealt with his fair share of adversity and has struggled with depression
Luke Campbell (l) told DailyMail.com that he was ‘wrong’ with his preconceptions about Garcia
Eventually, Garcia found a way through that mental turmoil. ‘Now I feel even crazier because I conquered it,’ he added. ‘I went through the fire already and I came out… I became an animal.’ With a different purpose.
‘Maybe the words I say, when I talk about it, can inspire a kid to get help, to not give up, to go to a therapist, to talk to their parents or a friend, and it’s going to save their life. That fulfils me more than anything boxing could ever give me.’
This fight with Davis was first agreed – verbally, at least – back in 2021 on Mike Tyson’s podcast Hotboxin’.
More than two years on, Tank is parking up on the lawns of Las Vegas.
Davis is the smaller man by four-and-a-half inches. He is giving up advantages in reach, too. But Garcia is still awaiting a world title. The first of Davis’ career came more than six years ago, when Tank was just 22. It made him the sport’s youngest world champion and a beacon on the streets of home. ‘People coming up behind me, I want to show them anything is possible,’ he said recently.
The size of this stage hit home when Tank took a late-night helicopter ride over The Strip.
Thankfully, Ford will be alongside him on Saturday night. Just as he has been since day one.
Davis used to sleep at his trainer’s home and at the seafood restaurant where Ford worked. After school, he would head to the gym and kip until it opened.
Ford and his gym offered Davis the love he lacked at home. But Tank saved his trainer, too: why would Ford’s young boxers heed advice to stay on the right side of the tracks if he wasn’t practising what he preached? Some didn’t listen and ended up dead. Ford’s own son Qaadir was murdered.
Back then, though, the trainer’s past had its advantages. Ford would turn to friends on the streets if he was struggling to take fighters to certain tournaments. Even during this camp, he has been treating Davis to some of his cinnamon rolls.
His is a tale fit for the small screen. At least Ed Burns thought so. He was among the Baltimore policemen chasing Ford in the 1980s. He later helped create The Wire and their character Dennis ‘Cutty’ Wise – who turns to boxing after leaving prison – was not plucked from thin air.
The fighters didn’t mince their words when they clashed on stage in California last month
British promoter Frank Warren reveals he thought Davis was ‘overhyped’ before 2017 bout
Davis (left) and Garcia both attended a news conference in Vegas on Thursday afternoon
As for Davis’ own upbringing in West Baltimore? ‘I want to say it’s a little worse than is shown in ‘The Wire,’ he told reporters in London in 2017.’ ‘I was supposed to be in The Wire but I was getting in trouble in school and on the streets.’
Davis, flanked that day by Mayweather’s travelling circus, spoke so quietly but in such gritty detail about his mother and father – both were on drugs – and the time he spent in group homes and foster care. He was taken to the gym by his uncle after one particular street fight. Since then, Ford has nurtured a phenomenal talent and a tortured soul.
But Frank Warren believed Britain’s Liam Walsh could halt this Tank in 2017.
‘He was very personable, very nice,’ the promoter told DailyMail.com this week. But? ‘I always felt he was a little bit overhyped.’
Alas, in just three rounds, the unbeaten Walsh was cowed and eventually stopped. ‘He had the air sucked out of him,’ Warren recalled.
Walsh can still remember Tank’s speed, the crisp, sharp punches, the intelligence. ‘It wasn’t like looking at a human,’ he told Boxing News this week: ‘His eyes were pinged up, like a cat getting their prey. His concentration was immense. If I’d farted he would have flinched to catch something – he was that on it.’
More wins and more knockouts have followed. Victory over Garcia, however, would mean more than any other.
As a kid, boxing ‘was like candy to me,’ Davis has said.
Now comes the stiffest test of his own sweet science.
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