Superstar Ryan Garcia (23-0, 19 KOs) crushed his opponent Javier Fortuna (37-4-1, 26 KOs) in scoring a sixth-round KO victory on Saturday night in their headliner on DAZN at the Crypto Arena in Los Angeles, California.
Fortuna was down three times in the fight, hitting the deck in rounds 4, 5 & 6. Referee Jerry Cantu counted out the 33-year-old Fortuna in round six after he took a knee moments after getting clocked by a left hook from the 23-year-old Ryan. The time of the stoppage came at 0:27 of the sixth.
After the bout ended, Ryan took advantage of the spotlight to call out WBA ‘regular’ lightweight champion Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis, saying that he would record the negotiations.
What Ryan didn’t say is the fight probably won’t happen due to Tank fighting on a different network. Sharing the fight between two networks would do neither one justice, and it wouldn’t be big enough for either one.
This wasn’t a significant enough victory for Ryan Garcia to create the kind of excitement from the boxing public to see him fight Tank Davis. After all, it was only last year that Fortuna was soundly defeated by Joseph ‘Jojo’ Diaz by a one-sided 12-round unanimous decision.
For Ryan Garcia to choose to fight Fortuna after his loss to Jojo Diaz, that’s arguably a cherry-picking move, which is why fans weren’t excited at this fight throughout the build-up. What Rryan needs to create interim worldwide in a fight between him and Tank Davis is victories over these fighters:
- Vasyl Lomachenko
- Devin Haney
- Isaac ‘Pitbull’ Cruz
- Shakur Stevenson
- Oscar Valdez
- Regis Prograis
- Jose Zepeda
- Josh Taylor
It’s debatable whether Ryan Garcia could best any of those guys, but those are the types of fighters he would need to defeat to make a fight between him and Tank Davis a mega-fight in the true sense.
Ryan Garcia says he's never going back to 135#GarciaFortuna pic.twitter.com/JNs5jKYsJU
— DAZN Boxing (@DAZNBoxing) July 17, 2022
Ryan looked considerably bigger in fighting at 140 than he had in his previous fights, and he took advantage of the increased weight to spear the smaller, weaker 33-year-old Fortuna with hard jab and straight right hands.
Fortuna was reluctant to mix it up with Ryan, and you can’t blame him one bit for that because he was getting nailed with left hooks. Those shots made Fortuna too nervous about letting his hands go.
The first three rounds saw Ryan stalking Fortuna around the ring, peppering him with jabs and right hands. It was difficult for Ryan to land his bread & butter punch during the first three rounds because Fortuna was not staying still and was making sure that he stayed on the outside to keep from getting hit.
In the fourth, Ryan connected with a short left hook to the body of Fortuna that crumpled him on the canvas. After Fortuna got back up, he attacked Ryan and landed a nice right hand to the head. However, Fortuna was intent on surviving and immediately went back into his shell.