Carl Frampton thinks Ryan Garcia failed to go out on his shield.
Garcia faced Gervonta Davis in one of the year’s most highly anticipated boxing bouts this past Saturday in Las Vegas and suffered the first setback of his career, losing by seventh-round knockout after Davis caught him with a wicked body shot. The previously undefeated Garcia didn’t appear to be immediately affected by the blow, but shortly after it landed he dropped to a knee and was unable to answer the referee’s 10-count.
Frampton, a former two-division boxing champion currently working as an analyst, feels Garcia could have continued. He explained his criticism of the boxer on The MMA Hour on Monday.
“I was a bit disappointed in Garcia and how he approached the fight,” Frampton said. “Not a lot happened in the first round, but it looked like he was having a decent second round, and then he walked into a good shot and he got dropped and he just looked really hesitant from that point in. He didn’t want to engage, and then at the end, the knee — it was just disappointing for me, because I know what it’s like to take a body shot. It’s a horrible sensation, but when you take a real body shot, you don’t have a decision to make. You’re involuntarily lying on the floor, you’re rolling around the floor, it’s severe, just in excruciating pain.
“Ryan Garcia’s on his knee looking at the referee and I think he’s going to get up at eight or nine, and he stays on his knee and then he stands up as soon as the 10-count is reached. I was just a bit disappointed in that, but it is what it is, and I always thought ‘Tank’ was the favorite in the fight and he just showed his class. I think he’s one of the most exciting fighters that we have in boxing at the moment.”
Asked point blank if he felt that Garcia quit, Frampton answered, “Yeah,” before elaborating further.
“He did get up,” Frampton continued. “He got up as soon as it got to 10, 11, he was up, he was on his feet. He made a conscious decision that, ‘I don’t want any more of this,’ and I understand — he may have been in a bit of pain, but it was just, I didn’t like it. I didn’t like how he quit. He quit, that’s the top and bottom.”
Prior to the finish of the fight, Garcia had only been dropped twice in his career, with one of those knockdowns occurring in Round 2 against Davis. Of Garcia’s 23 pro wins, 19 have come by way of knockout.
The 24-year-old made no excuses after the fight, but Frampton still wonders if the lingering image of Garcia taking a knee in a loss will affect his image going forward.
“I think one of the issues with people who do decide to not continue on when they are able to continue on, that’s in you, it’s hard to get out,” Frampton said. “I look at someone like Gervonta Davis, if the rules were reversed, I don’t think he’s staying on his knee. I think he gets back up on his boots and he goes out on his shoes. I think there’s some fighters that do it and some fighters that don’t.
“I don’t know too much about Ryan Garcia, I don’t know much about his background or anything, the lifestyle he come up with or whatever, was it a privileged background or not, I don’t really know, but it just looked like this street kid, and Gervonta Davis wouldn’t have stayed on his knee is what I’m saying.”
Though Frampton is harsh in his assessment of Garcia’s loss, he sympathized with the boxer potentially being affected by a pre-fight clause in the bout agreement. Davis’ team demanded a rehydration clause requiring Garcia to weigh in again on fight day to ensure that he was not over the 136-pound catchweight limit. Garcia mentioned the clause in his post-fight interview, but did not point to it as a reason for his loss.
Frampton doesn’t think that the rehydration clause was appropriate for the matchup, or any boxing matchup whatsoever.
“I think that when you’re lean, when you have to be really lean, you feel the shots around the body a lot more,” Frampton said. “I used to fight, my first division was super bantamweight — or junior featherweight as you guys call it — 122 pounds, and I had to be super lean, and little silly shots used to hurt a little bit but you kind of ride the storm and get through it. As I went up the weight, I was able to cope and deal with body shots a little bit more, so coming down it was always going to be difficult for him, but the rehydration clause that was put in place as well.
“I just think it was unfair. It’s one thing bringing the kid down [to a weight Garcia hasn’t recently been competing at], that’s one thing. But the rehydration clause, I don’t agree with them. I don’t think it should have any place in boxing. You should make your weight and that should be it, there should be no need for a rehydration clause.”
