Ryan Garcia may have coronation as 'King of Boxing' if he finds a way to beat Gervonta Davis
LAS VEGAS — Ever since Oscar De La Hoya announced he would retire on a sunny April day in downtown Los Angeles that he was retiring from professional boxing, the search for the next De La Hoya began.
It has been an all but impossible task.
For all his missteps as a promoter and hiccups in his personal life, there is no denying that De La Hoya the boxer was one of the greatest whose ever done it. He was one of the most popular fighters not only of his generation but of all time. He was supremely talented, but was also hugely courageous.
He sought out the best challenges. This is a guy who fought Floyd Mayweather Jr., Manny Pacquiao, Bernard Hopkins, Shane Mosley twice, Julio Cesar Chavez Sr. twice, Hector Camacho, Pernell Whitaker, Genaro Hernandez and Rafael Ruelas, among others. There were more, but you get the idea.
De La Hoya, sadly, was tagged unfairly with the nickname "Chicken" De La Hoya after he did not rematch Whitaker. De La Hoya, though, was anything but a chicken, and thankfully for boxing fans, he passed that trait to his protégé, "King" Ryan Garcia.
Garcia will fight Gervonta "Tank" Davis Saturday in a 136-pound bout in the main event of a pay-per-view card at T-Mobile Arena. It's across the street from the MGM Grand Garden, where De La Hoya built his reputation as one of the game's brightest lights.
It's not fair to compare Garcia to De La Hoya just yet. It would be a lopsided win in De La Hoya's favor, even though Garcia is powerful, quick, courageous and charismatic, just as a young De La Hoya was.
This, though, is where the difference between them lies. Davis is a quantum leap ahead of anyone whom Garcia has faced in building a 23-0 record with 19 knockouts. When De La Hoya was 23-0, he had already beaten world champions Hernandez, Ruelas, Jesse James Leija, Jorge Paez, Troy Dorsey and Jimmi Bredahl and was heading into a fight with Chavez Sr.
By the time that De La Hoya turned pro in 1992 following a gold medal earlier that year at the Olympic Games in Barcelona, Spain, the tide was turning in boxing. After a glorious decade in the 1980s, boxing was transitioning off of broadcast television and basic cable and onto premium cable, where the viewership was smaller. Managers and promoters were more cautious, and used more tune-ups for their elite fighters as a way to build impressive records with next-to-no risk.
De La Hoya bucked that trend and was seeking out the best competition he could early in his career. He fought a former champion in his eighth pro fight, which was eight months into his career, and fought for his first world title in his 12th bout, 15 months into his career.
Garcia has done nothing of the sort, though he's clearly oozing with potential. De La Hoya, though, shuns the comparisons with himself.
"With a win, Ryan doesn’t become this generation’s Oscar De La Hoya," De La Hoya said. "He becomes this generation’s Ryan Garcia. Even before he was a superstar, I’ve always said that Ryan Garcia can become even bigger than Canelo [Alvarez]. Even bigger than Oscar De La Hoya. Bigger than whoever. ...
"The world is going to be watching on [Saturday]. It’s going to shatter pay-per-view records and numbers. It’s going to do a huge amount of buys."
As great as he was as a fighter, De La Hoya is even better with the hyperbole. There is zero chance this bout shatters pay-per-view records. For the record, the PPV record sales for a boxing match is 4.6 million, set in 2015 by Mayweather and Pacquiao. Davis-Garcia has no chance to do even a quarter of that.
That, though, isn't the point. De La Hoya is a promoter trying to sell, but what is important is what Garcia did.
He made this fight happen. He's promoted this fight vigorously. And if he can perform at a high level, yes, he does have a chance to be the next De La Hoya.
The problem for Garcia is that he needs dance partners and as we've seen with the exhausting dragged on negotiations to make undisputed title fights between welterweights Terence Crawford and Errol Spence Jr. and heavyweights Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk, it's not easy to get these fights done. Hell, this fight was announced in November but wasn't finalized until March.
Garcia never wavered in his resolve. As talented and charismatic as he is, he has a wisdom that belies his 24 years.
"This is a huge fight for boxing," Garcia said. "It can really change the trajectory of the sport and inspire young fighters to get it on right now. People are going to love you. They’re going to see that you went out there and you fought the best and you gave it your all. Even if you win or even if you lose, you showed them what a champion is in life.
"You just get right back up and you don’t let negative people who won’t even dare to do anything keep you down because you know where you’re going in life. To me, this is important to everybody that it takes courage to go after something that nobody believed you could do. That’s why I’m standing here today. To make everybody realize that if you’re in there and chase your dream like you’ve never chased anything before, and you’ll see something special happen."
That comment summarizes why Garcia has a chance to become another De La Hoya. Boxing isn't going to be saved by one bout, nor does it need to be. It's a sport that flows beneath the radar much of the time and then jumps up when the people who run it come to their senses and put a pair of stars together.
Boxing wasn't saved when Mike Tyson fought Evander Holyfield or Lennox Lewis. It wasn't saved when Mayweather fought De La Hoya or Pacquiao. It wasn't saved when Alvarez fought Gennadiy Golovkin and it won't be saved by Davis-Garcia.
But, events like those give life to a sport that badly needs it. Fortunately, many of the younger fighters on the rise share Garcia's attitude. Undisputed lightweight champion Devin Haney is one of those. So is Shakur Stevenson. And there are others.
If more fighters adopt the attitude that Garcia has taken, maybe we'll finally stop talking about saving the sport at all.
