“Did it hit that rib part at all?”
That was trainer Joe Goosen’s question to Ryan Garcia just moments after the 24-year-old fighter took a knee after he absorbed a nasty body shot from Gervonta Davis in their showdown in Las Vegas this past Saturday night.
The post-fight footage revealed as part of the final chapter of Showtime’s All-Access series caught the immediate aftermath to the conclusion in the fight.
Replays showed Davis landing a quick jab to the body and almost as if it was a delayed reaction, Garcia backed up before taking a knee in the ring. The referee started his mandatory 10 count and it appeared for a moment that Garcia was going to get back to his feet.
Instead, Garcia was wincing in pain and he couldn’t rise before the referee made it to 10, which ended the fight with a seventh round TKO.
After his trainer asked him if the punch hit his rib, Garcia confirmed that’s what happened and Goosen answered back “I knew it.”
“I didn’t want to continue because of my rib,” Garcia said. “But it’s OK. I don’t want to make excuses.”
The body shot was ultimately the second knockdown in the fight after Garcia got dropped in the second round thanks to a hard punch he absorbed from Davis during a rapid-fire exchange.
It was certainly not the ending that Garcia wanted after suffering the first loss of his career. Afterwards, Garcia announced that he was leaving the 135-pound division with plans to start competing at 140 pounds in the future.