Oscar De La Hoya predicts that when Ryan Garcia and Gervonta Davis meet soon, the rematch will bring in 4 million PPV buys. That’s a very ambitious number by the Golden Boy promoter Oscar because it assumes that Ryan (23-1, 19 KOs) will enjoy success in the 140-lb division, and that’s far from certain.
It sounds like a pipe dream on De La Hoya’s part because the only way his vision can come true is if Ryan Garcia enjoys major success at 140 and becomes a significant player in the division. Can that happen? Probably not.
If you look at how Ryan performed against Tank and Luke Campbell, the best guys he’s fought in his seven-year pro career, he cannot beat the best at 140.
There are punchers with better power than Tank Davis at light welterweight, and they’ll likely follow the blueprint he created to hurt Ryan to the body and take advantage of his weak chin.
It’s possible that Ryan can win a lot of fights at 140, but only if he’s kept away from talented fighters like Regis Prograis, Josh Taylor, Subriel Matias, Teofimo Lopez, and Gary Antuanne Russell.
That’s just a short list of fighters that Ryan will need to be maneuvered around for him to return to his winning ways to have a chance of meeting up with Gervonta Davis at some point to see if De La Hoya’s prediction of four million pay-per-view buys rings true.
“Believe me, when they do it again, that fight can do four million homes easy,” said De La Hoya to Fighthype about a rematch between Ryan Garcia and Gervonta Davis.
If Ryan had the same ability that De La Hoya had during his career, then you’d say he may beat enough of the top fighters at 140 to win all his fights to make a rematch between him and Gervonta a viable option.
But right now, that won’t happen without De La Hoya spoon-feeding Ryan exclusively creampuff opposition at 140 like he’d done at 135 to build his 23-0 record to land the cashout right fight against Tank Davis.
“Ryan Garcia’s still an attraction. He’s still a star, so there’s nothing lost there,” said De La Hoya. “I think Gervonta will go up to the stars and Ryan Garcia as well. So now we have two stars, which is great for boxing.”
“Ryan’s still Ryan. He had a good performance leading up to it, got hit by a body shot,” said De La Hoya.
