Promoter Oscar De La Hoya believes his fighter, Ryan Garcia, successfully fooled everyone with his trolling behavior leading up to his fight with Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis. De La Hoya suggests that Garcia’s erratic actions made Davis fight in a more aggressive manner, which played into Garcia’s game plan.
According to De La Hoya, Garcia’s goal was to make Davis underestimate him and believes he won the mind games against his fellow American. “I think fooled everybody. He knew he was ready, he knew he was trolling everybody, but it actually worked,” De La Hoya said to FightHype.
However, an analysis by Boxing News 24 disagrees with De La Hoya’s assessment. They claim that while Garcia hurt Davis at close range, Davis was not fighting any more aggressively than usual. Instead, they attribute Garcia’s success to his preparation and conditioning in training camp, as well as Davis’s larger size playing a role in the outcome of the fight.
