Carl Frampton criticized Ryan Garcia’s response to a body shot in his fight against Gervonta Davis, suggesting Garcia quit rather than continuing to fight through the pain.
Carl Frampton has expressed his disappointment in Ryan Garcia’s performance against Gervonta Davis this past Saturday in Las Vegas. Garcia faced his first career setback, losing by seventh-round knockout after Davis caught him with a powerful body shot. The previously undefeated Garcia dropped to a knee and couldn’t answer the referee’s 10-count. Frampton, a former two-division boxing champion now working as an analyst, believes Garcia could have continued and criticized his approach to the fight on The MMA Hour.
Frampton expressed, “I was a bit disappointed in Garcia and how he approached the fight… 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… 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… I think he’s one of the most exciting fighters that we have in boxing at the moment.” When asked if he felt that Garcia quit, Frampton answered, “Yeah.”
“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.” Frampton questioned how the image of Garcia taking a knee in a loss will affect his image going forward. He added, “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… It just looked like this street kid, and Gervonta Davis wouldn’t have stayed on his knee is what I’m saying.”
Frampton also sympathized with Garcia potentially being affected by a pre-fight rehydration clause in the bout agreement, requiring Garcia to weigh in again on fight day to ensure that he was not over the 136-pound catchweight limit. Although Garcia mentioned the clause in his post-fight interview, he did not cite it as a reason for his loss. Frampton does not think the rehydration clause was appropriate for the matchup or for any boxing match, stating, “I just think it was unfair… You should make your weight and that should be it, there should be no need for a rehydration clause.”