Key events
It wouldn’t be boxing if there weren’t at least a few uncomfortable underpinnings. Davis has moved the needle like few other American boxers in recent memory, winning belts at 126lbs, 130lbs and 135lbs while selling out arenas from coast to coast.
That dizzying ascent and shimmering brilliance has been enough to relegate a disturbing pattern of allegations – that he is a violent, unrepentant domestic abuser – to the margins of his narrative. But the 28-year-old Baltimore native faces the real prospect of jail time at a sentencing hearing less than two weeks today.
[Davis’s] bubble of impunity was finally punctured last month when he pleaded guilty in a Baltimore circuit court to four counts stemming from a hit-and-run crash in November 2020 which left four people hospitalized, including a pregnant woman. After the judge overseeing the case rejected a plea deal that would have allowed him to serve 60 days of unsupervised home detention, Davis faces the real prospect of jail time at his sentencing on 5 May.
Of course Davis is hardly the first boxer who has been licensed to fight with a serious criminal case and potential incarceration hanging over his head. If that’s the uncomfortable moral bargain that was necessary to get these bitter rivals into the ring together, it’s one that most boxing fans would leap at.
Here’s where we’re at. Two of the televised undercard fights are in the books with one left before the main event. Bektemir Melikuziev just won a wide 10-round decision over the faded Gabriel Rosado in their super middleweight bout following Elijah Garcia’s narrow points win over Kevin Salgado Zambrano in the opener.
Next up: David Morrell and Sena Agbeko will face off in a 12-round matchup for Morrell’s secondary belt at 168lbs. Then Davis and Garcia will make their ringwalks.
Preamble
Hello and welcome to Las Vegas for tonight’s fight between Gervonta Davis and Ryan Garcia. We’re inside the T-Mobile Arena for an eagerly awaited showdown between the two most popular boxers in the United States today: a pair of undefeated knockout merchants early in their primes, represented by different companies and broadcasters, all of whom have put aside their differences to make the fight the people have wanted for years.
No titles are on the line in tonight’s scheduled 12-round bout, which is taking place at a catchweight of 136lbs, but the stakes could hardly be higher. Tonight’s winner goes forward with his perfect record intact as the face of boxing in America – with all the benefits, bragging rights and earning potential that entails.
Here’s a bit more background on tonight’s main event:
Call it boxing’s first Gen-Z megafight, borne from a protracted feud that’s largely unfolded on social media over two years and leaning into a future where followers are listed on the tale of the tape alongside height, weight and reach.
But it’s also a credible throwback to a time when the best went across the street to fight the best regardless of promotional affiliation, rather than handpicking inferior opponents to inflate their win-loss ledger. And its significance only redoubles with the once-rosy prospects of a heavyweight unification blockbuster between Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk diminishing by the day and the even longer-awaited pound-for-pound showdown between Terence Crawford and Errol Spence Jr withering on the vine.
Davis, who sprang from abject poverty in west Baltimore and became the sport’s second-youngest world champion at just 22 years old, has moved the needle like few other US prize-fighters in recent memory, capturing belts at 126lbs, 130lbs and 135lbs while selling out arenas from coast to coast. A southpaw touched with concussive power in both hands known for overcoming quiet starts with a deliberate stalking style, he is undefeated in 29 professional fights with 27 knockouts and an emerging mainstream attraction with more than 4.7m followers on Instagram. When he broke the live gate record at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center last year, Madonna watched from ringside.
Garcia has been dogged by critics for his good looks, luxury-brand endorsements and enormous social-media reach – upwards of 9.6m Instagram followers with 5.3m more on TikTok – as a pretty-faced influencer from Orange County who happens to box. But in the seven years since the 15-time amateur champion entered the paying ranks, he’s stopped 20 of the 23 opponents he’s faced inside the distance, including all but one of the last 19. The winning cocktail has been straightforward enough: blinding hand speed and a devastating left hook. Questions over his mettle were answered when he came off the deck to stop Britain’s Luke Campbell, the 2012 Olympic champion who had gone the distance with Vasyl Lomachenko. But Campbell, for all he’s accomplished, is no Davis.
It’s nearly 7pm in Las Vegas and the undercard is moving along. The main event is expected to begin in a little more than one hour. Plenty to come between now and then.
Bryan will be here shortly. In the meantime here’s his report from Friday’s weigh-ins.
