On Sunday morning, the Showtime Sports documentary series “All Access”, premiered with the first episode of Gervonta “Tank” Davis and Ryan Garcia was released documenting the two-city press tour, which took place in New York City, and Los Angeles, California in back-to-back days. The pay-per-view fight which will take place will see the two unbeaten stars fighting for bragging rights on April 22nd, at the T-Mobile Arena, in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Garcia, who is currently undefeated, but never fought for a world title, has a record of twenty-three wins, with nineteen of those wins coming by way of knockout. In July of last year, Garcia knocked out Javier Fortuna in the sixth round, before that Garcia defeated Emmanuel Tagoe which ended his sixteen-month lay-off from the sport of boxing after he stopped Luke Campbell, but came off the deck to do so. For Garcia, this is his biggest step up in competition as a professional.
Davis, on the hand, is arguably the biggest star in the sport of boxing at the moment. Younger than Canelo Alvarez, Davis can connect with a youthful crowd who sees Davis as their peer and one of them, rather than an old distinguished fighter. Davis is hoping to parlay his success both in terms of the ring and filling up stadiums to the face of boxing. This will be Davis’ sixth fight on pay-per-view, and his second fight of the year as he started strong with a ninth-round stoppage win over Hector Luis Garcia on January 7th.
“[Davis] has never seen determination like this in his life,” said Garcia while running at night for the Showtime special feature, while wearing some type of designer jacket. “He can’t fathom how to get like this. He doesn’t have this mentality like me. It’s all laughs at the press conference, but when it comes to hard work - that’s why I am here.”
Besides being a battle of two undefeated distinguished fighters - what makes this fight so interesting is it occupies the same space as Biggie and Tupac did in the mid 90’s. These are the legends of the younger generation. The most famous fighters to a subsection of the world. The ones who know how to speak the coded language of Instagram, TikTok, and all the other platforms. These two are influencers as well as athletes, and though a world title is not on the line for this 136-lbs catchweight bout, the bragging rights of being the best young fighter are.
“I got to outwork this man,” said Garcia as he seems to be tapped into a motivational component for this camp, and something I notice that is very big on social media. “Trust the truth, trust your work, trust in yourself, and you will be okay."
