Ryan Garcia recently held a media workout in advance of his April 22 big-ticket pay-per-view clash with Gervonta “Tank” Davis on April 22. He had plenty to say about his opponent Davis and Davis’ character.
“I think people misinterpreted what I was saying,” the 24-year-old Garcia told Fight Hub TV, referring to his perceived complaints about the much talked about rehydration clause worked into his contract with Davis. “I wasn’t complaining about the weight cut or anything, I’m just showing what kind of character that man has. He’s no champion. He has no sense of right or wrong. That’s his character. He lacks self-awareness and awareness in general.”
Garcia then turned to interviewer Marcos Villegas and got a little more personal.
“I have a question for you too,” Garcia said. “You had mentioned to Gervonta that ‘God keeps me calm’ [and] you guys kind of laughed at that…I just wanted to know what’s so funny about that?”
Villegas would explain the context of what Garcia clearly misinterpreted.
In Davis’ media workout the previous week, Davis would call Garcia out for being a hypocrite who claims to be religious, but who also sins gleefully and with regularity.
“He’s ‘I praise God’ and everything, but he drinks a lot, he gambles a lot,” Davis said. “Yeah, for sure [he’s a hypocrite]…He’s more of a bad person than me….He tries to play something he’s not…When the door’s closed and the cameras are off, he’s this other person.”
Villegas would offer up in that Davis interview that Garcia says gambling calms him down, a remark that generated a chuckle from Davis as well as the media on hand.
Garcia, though, was not amused.
“That kind of statement causes a lot of confusion in people,” Garcia replied. “A lot of people, they’re so on the fence of believing in God and what that really means.”
“When you come to God, it’s not you’re coming to praise him because you’re perfect,” the fighter explained. “You’re coming to praise him because you understand you’re imperfect.”
Garcia would then target Tank Davis directly.
“Those things he even claimed, it just shows me he hasn’t done much searching on what God really is because, if he understood it, you would know the things that he says. In itself, drinking is not even a sin. Getting drunk is. Gambling is not a sin, only when the Holy Spirit convicts you and you don’t listen. So, these are things he speaks that he knows nothing about. It just shows me his level of maturity. He’s 28 and has done no searching. It just shows me he’s not doing anything for anybody but himself.
“And I’m here to spread a good message to people. That’s what being a champion is about. Taking your wrongs and making right. Understanding what the truth really is, not stopping at a plateau and letting everybody live in confusion. You gotta go in and search as a person.”
Garcia, who has been vocal about his religious beliefs and open about his mental health issues, would close things out, waxing poetic about the meaning of life.
“Life…This is what it’s about,” he affirmed. “It’s to give people hope and to do things outside of yourself, for other people. That’s what life is about. Sacrifice for others and to really search inside yourself so you could spread a powerful message.
“It’s self-centered the way he thinks.”
Gervonta “Tank” Davis and Ryan “King Ry” Garcia are set to meet in a blockbuster 136 lb. catchweight clash, Showtime/DAZN pay-per-view on April 22 from T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
