Ryan Garcia 23-0 (19) should never have accepted the rehydration clause imposed on him by Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis 28-0 (26) for their 136-pound catchweight bout at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada on April 22.
The 24-year-old Californian, who stands at 5-foot-10, moved up to the junior welterweight division one year ago after competing as a lightweight for the bulk of his career.
Garcia is only permitted to put on 10 pounds between the weigh-in for the Davis fight and the bout itself one day later.
Retired former world champion turned ESPN boxing analyst Tim Bradley does not believe Garcia should have conceded to the rehydration limit requested by the Davis camp.
“You already weakened the guy, and now you’re going to weaken him even more so you can have an advantage? How fair is that? You didn’t do that Mario Barrios,” Bradley said to FightHype.
“I’m not with that. A-side, this side. You’re already winning the money side. The A-side is the money side.
“When you start weakening a fighter where you can have an advantage, that’s wrong because you can blow up and you’re not a little guy either.
“You ain’t not small guy. You’re probably coming down from 160. I been seeing your cheeks. You’ve been having chipmunk cheeks.
“You’re going to blow up, but you’re not going to let him blow up after the [weigh-in], so you can have an advantage.
“I just think it’s wrong. I understand the history and all that, but Mayweather and those guys, it was a different time in their careers when they did it.
“It was a whole different circumstance. It doesn’t apply to this circumstance now. Both of these guys are young guys and Tank ain’t even on the level of a Mayweather or Sugar Ray Leonard. He ain’t on that level.
“With Tank’s career right now at 28 years old, he ain’t even a Hall of Fame fighter.
“I’m not saying that lightly because his resume is thin. So for him to say, ‘I’m the A-side, this is what I want to do’, it’s completely wrong. You know it’s to his advantage.
“If he does win this fight, it’s going to be like, ‘oh, you beat Ryan Garcia’. After you dehydrated him. And you know he can’t make 135 anymore. So you’re going to make him make 136? Okay, alright… It’s great because Ryan and his people agreed to it. Ryan agreed to everything. Some things like that, you can’t allow. You can’t be punked like that, bro. I’m sorry.”
Bradley added: “It was a huge mistake by him and his team by allowing him and his people to force him into this rehydration. I’m going in at whatever weight I’m comfortable at.
“I don’t know what they have in the contract as far as what they put on because if they have the weight in the contract and he comes in over it, I already know there’s a stipulation in there. There’s no doubt about it.
“So what I would do is come in at what I’m comfortable with because, guess what? You’re not going to knock me out and embarrass me when I’m not at my full potential.”
