Robert Garcia: Tank Davis “Never Really Challenged Himself.”

By: Sean Crose

Famed trainer and former world titleist Robert Garcia has an interesting take on the upcoming Jake Paul- Gervonta Davis novelty bout. While he doesn’t fault lightweight Davis for taking the fight against the super sized (to him at least) Paul, he does feel that Davis has not reached the point in his career where he can have the luxury of taking on fights that are not essentially serious.

“Everybody has done it,”Garcia said of novelty bouts to Fight Hub (via Sports Illustrated) “Mayweather has done it, Ali has done it.” Garcia feels however, that there’s a difference between those two legends and Davis . “The only thing in my personal opinion,” he added, “is that they all did it when they had accomplished so much.Garcia makes an interesting point. Mayweather, for instance, had already fought a who’s who of serious competition before he slipped in between the ropes to face the likes of Jake’s older brother Logan. “I think Tank never gave us the fights we really wanted,” Garcia said.

It’s a nuanced way of looking at things. It seems Garcia has no problem with the kind of novelty fights that have rocked the sport of boxing. It appears he simply thinks novelty fights are for those boxes who have already shown their worth. He has a point. While no one will argue that Davis isn’t a talented, even explosive fighter, there’s no Shakur Stevenson or Vasyl Lomachenko on his resume. While it might be unfair to accuse Davis of avoiding such formidable competition during the course of his career, there’s no doubt there are people who feels he’s a bit of an underachiever.

“He never really challenged himself,” said Garcia. “He didn’t give Roach that rematch, which he should have. Mayweather did it when he had a hard time with Maidana and Castillo, right away. He did the rematches to prove everybody wrong.” Indeed there are some out there who feel that Davis is outright showing he has zero interest in his profession.

“Davis clearly doesn’t care,” Yahoo’s Lewis Watson said of the November fight. “He has accepted Paul’s hefty paycheck and will undertake the minimum required of him in order to cash it.” If that’s not the case, if Davis is truly engaged, many honestly can’t tell by watching him in the lead-up to his throwdown with Paul. No matter which way you slice it, that isn’t a good thing. Hopefully before he retires Davis will have the kind of fight his talents have long called for. Then perhaps he can get on to the novelty stuff without criticism he finds himself receiving now.