Floyd Mayweather Jr. says he’s ready to make the fight between Ryan Garcia and Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis this year within the next 90 days, but it MUST take place in the 135-lb weight class not at 140.
Mayweather, who promotes WBA ‘regular’ lightweight champion Gervonta (27-0, 25 KOs), states that the unbeaten beltless Ryan Garcia (23-0, 19 KOs) must make “sacrifices” if he wants the fight because he’s not going to get it otherwise.
Floyd points out that he made sacrifices when he agreed to move up to 154 to face Oscar De La Hoya in 2007 when he was the A-side.
Ryan will need to make a decision if he wants the fight badly enough against Tank Davis. As of now, Ryan is insisting that the fight needs to happen at 140, as he’s outgrown the 135-lb division, and hasn’t fought in that weight class since his match against Luke Campbell in January 2021.
“The main man in the sport of boxing right now is the man that is attached to me, Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis,” said Floyd Mayweather Jr. to Fighthype. “That’s the only thing this kid, Ryan Garcia, that’s the only thing he know is Tank.
“‘I want to fight Tank; I don’t care if it’s the biggest fight.’ Okay, you want to fight Tank. In boxing, we make sacrifices,” continued Mayweather.
“So, we know that Tank fights at 135. If you want to fight Tank at 135, we can make it happen before the end of the year. Absolutely not,” said Floyd when told that Ryan Garcia is talking about wanting the fight against Tank Davis at 140.
Ryan Garcia will likely readily agree to return to the 135-lb division for the Tank fight because he knows he’ll probably never get it otherwise.
The only way Tank & Mayweather would compromise is if Ryan’s popularity shoots through the roof in 2023, with him beating the top fighters at 140. That’s probably not going to happen because Golden Boy wouldn’t be willing to throw Ryan to the wolves by matching him tough against these killers:
- Regis Prograis
- Jose Zepeda
- Jose Ramirez
- Teofimo Lopez
- Subriel Matias
- Montana Love
- Arnold Barboza
- Gary Antuanne Russell
It’s safe to say that Ryan Garcia WON’T fight any of those contenders in 2023, and likely not even in 2024 if he’s still competing in the 140-lb division at that point.
“You just fought at 135, so why can’t you fight at 135 again?” said Mayweather, not realizing that Ryan’s last two fights have been at 140, and he hasn’t fought at 135 since January 2021.
“He’s young. I could see if he was a lot older,” continued Mayweather about Ryan Garcia. “He’s not in his 30s. When you get older, guys get older, and the weight settles in, and then you be like, ‘Okay, I can’t make the weight anymore. But he’s young, and we have to make sacrifices.
“If there’s certain things you want in the sport of boxing, like Ryan Garcia really wants this fight with Tank. So if you really want this fight with Tank, sacrifice. We have to make sacrifices.
“Even though I knew I wasn’t a 154-pounder, I knew there were certain sacrifices that I had to make. Oscar De La Hoya chose the gloves, chose the judges, and he chose everything. He chose the weight class; he chose everything.
“I knew I was the better fighter; I felt I was the better fighter, and I showed y’all that I was the better fighter. Guess what I did? I made sacrifices.
“So if you feel like you can beat Tank, and you the better fighter, then guess what? Make sacrifices. You just fought at 135 [in January 2021 against Luke Campbell]. We can fight in 90 days if you want to. Whatever you want to do. Ain’t going to get smoked.
“It’s not going to be difficult to make. It’s not going to be a problem,” said Mayweather when told that Ryan Garcia’s promoter Oscar De La Hoya, believes that Al Haymon will make the fight with Tank Davis difficult to make.
“This is what we’re going to do. We’re going to turn down a lot of things, but we’re not going to turn down money. We’ve all done some foolish things in life, but we’re not no damn fool. So now, I’ll let Oscar know this. We can make the fight happen.
“The fight has got to be at 135. Even though I was fight at 147, Oscar said, ‘Floyd, you got to come to 154. He made a sacrifice. Remember this; he made a sacrifice for Manny Pacquiao, but he didn’t want to make a sacrifice for me because he needed. He felt he would have the edge over me with size.
“I was never a 154-pounder. I was always a 130-pounder beating guys at 147, 154, whatever the weight is. I was always a 130-pounder. I actually was a 126-pounder, and I was able to dominate the sport of boxing throughout so many years. So that’s what it was.
“Oscar, we can make the fight happen [between Ryan Garcia and Tank Davis]. 135 is the weight class. Of course, Tank is the A-side. Ryan hasn’t won a world title yet. We can’t talk about no interim belt. We don’t talk about that. That don’t count.
“We don’t take nothing away from the guy Fortuna, but he was just an opponent. I’m going to have Tank in the best shape of his life. Just know, when he hit that boy [Ryan Garcia], he’s not going to wake up until next year.
“It’s crazy that everybody is calling Tank’s name. I’m so proud of Tank. I told him this was going to happen. We were sitting on one of them big yachts out in Miami, sitting back, talking & chilling, taking the jet skis out. I told him, ‘Don’t worry, before you know it, everybody is calling me out but soon everybody is going to be calling you out.’
“I don’t think he expected for it to be so fast. But all jokes aside, we can make the fight happen. Truthfully speaking, we can make the fight happen, but the fight is going to happen at 135.
“Sacrifice, make sacrifices, and we can make it happen,” said Mayweather with his message to Ryan Garcia about what he must do if he wants to fight Tank Davis next.
