Ryan Garcia has blown up against Gervonta Davis, after criticism from the world champion over boxers’ mental health issues.
Gervonta Davis has “a very low IQ”: Ryan Garcia
Combat sports athletes often experience mental health issues, and Ryan Garcia is one of them. In the first semester of 2020, “King Ryan” experienced depression problems that made him stay away from boxing for a few months and he cancelled his fight against Javier Fortuna.
At the time, he moved away from Eddy Reynoso ‘s gym and the Canelo Team to work on himself. In the end he went back to the gym to prepare for his fight against Emmanuel Tagoe , but lack of time caused him to leave the gym and return to Joe Goosen.
Under his new trainer, Garcia returned to boxing in 2022 and defeated Tagoe in April by unanimous decision by scorecards of 119-108, 119-108 and 118-110, and Dominican Javier Fortuna by knockout in the sixth round in July. After his victory over Fortuna, Ryan insisted on a clash against Gervonta Davis and months later they announced a deal to fight in 2023.
There’s enough bad blood between the two already, but things heated up even more after Davis made a controversial statement that Garcia and several other boxers use mental health issues as an ‘excuse’ not to face real challenges in the ring.
” We all go through mental health issues,” Ryan wrote on his Twitter account in response to Davis. “You can neither speak well nor make a sentence. I think you haven’t researched enough on the subject or you have a very low IQ.”
“I’ve boxed my whole life, I’ve fought over 200 times,” he further stated, “If I was afraid to fight, I would have snapped by now. I think Tank is just a fool and he sure as hell can’t hold a conversation for five minutes.”
Prior to his fight, Gervonta will fight Dominican Héctor Luis García on January 7th. Although Ryan initially planned on doing a warm-up bout, he ultimately decided not to fight Filipino Mercito Gesta in January and will face Davis directly in April.
