Gervonta Davis was in trouble: The face of boxing @Gervontaa stops Garcia in round 7 with a VICIOUS body shot

The undefeated boxing sensation was being pummeled by Ryan Garcia in the second round of their highly anticipated catchweight bout on Saturday in Las Vegas. Things were so bad that Davis could only clinch the taller Garcia in a desperate attempt to stay on his feet. Referee Thomas Taylor tried to separate the two, but nothing could protect Davis from Garcia, who appeared ready for an early knockout win.

Instead, it was Davis who dropped Garcia with a left to the chin, instantly changing the course of the fight.

Garcia got up quickly, but Davis would go on to dominate much of the next five rounds before his opponent seemingly quit in the seventh after absorbing a devastating shot to his liver.

Reeling, Garcia took a knee and momentarily looked like he was giving himself a quick breather. But he would not return to his feet and Davis improved to 29-0 with the KO win.

The face of boxing @Gervontaa stops Garcia in round 7 with a VICIOUS body shot 😱 #DavisGarcia pic.twitter.com/8MRrWvBOOQ

— SHOWTIME Boxing (@ShowtimeBoxing) April 23, 2023

Gervonta Davis has beaten Ryan Garcia with his 27th knockout to take his record to 29-0

Davis celebrates after Garcia took the knee in round seven and could not carry on fighting

Davis knocked Garcia down in the second round after his rival started the Las Vegas bout well

.@Gervontaa DROPS Ryan in Round 2 😱 #DavisGarcia pic.twitter.com/8Pj5Czovqs

— SHOWTIME Boxing (@ShowtimeBoxing) April 23, 2023

‘It’s just him not knowing his placement,’ Davis told Showtime’s Jim Gray in a post-fight interview, echoing his frequent criticisms of Garcia’s technique. ‘I knew that I was the smarter guy. My coach was telling me in camp: ”He’s gonna come up with his head up, so just shoot over top.”’

After the fight, the word ‘liver’ began trending on Twitter as fans reacted to the brutal shot to Garcia’s midsection.

‘It was a good shot, for sure,’ Davis (29-0, 27 KOs) told Gray.

On replay, the left-handed body shot was absolutely devastating, but in the moment, Davis didn’t think he had won the fight.

‘I thought he was gonna get up, but I like to play mind games, so when he was looking at me, I was looking at him trying to tell him ”get up,”’ Davis said. ‘And then he just shook his head ”no.”’

As Garcia (23-1, 19 KOs) later told Gray: ‘I just couldn’t get up.’

Davis was asked by Gray if he’s now the face of boxing.

‘I’m definitely the face of boxing,’ Davis said. ‘Abso-f***ing-lutely.

‘Everything about this was exciting,’ he added. ‘I was excited to be a part of this event. I remember coming up in the Golden Gloves and seeing Floyd [Mayweather Jr.] fight at the MGM. It was crazy. I actually just saw Rihanna perform at the Super Bowl, and I thought that’s going to be me one day, and we’re here.’

Davis was briefly in trouble in the second round and needed to clinch Garcia for a bit

Davis celebrates after beating rival Garcia in their hotly-anticipated catchweight bout

Garcia wasn’t bad against Davis.

The California native’s jab was working, he show excellent footwork while preventing the 28-year-old Davis from outflanking him, and he even connected with a few strong rights in the sixth.

In fact, Garcia actually landed five more punches than Davis, who is known to be a minimalist in the ring.

But Davis landed an impressive 34 percent of his punches, which is more or less his usual, while Garcia could only connect on 24 percent of his.

And Davis easily used Garcia’s aggression against him in the pivotal second round.   When Garcia came in too high with a left, Davis was waiting and promptly put his opponent on the canvas.

But the biggest lesson for Garcia came in the seventh, when he failed to defend his torso as Davis came in low and unloaded the now-infamous liver shot.

‘I couldn’t breathe,’ Garcia told Showtime. ‘I was going to get back up, but I just couldn’t get up… He just caught me with a good shot. I don’t want to make no excuses in here.. I just couldn’t recover. … He caught me with a good body shot, snuck under me and caught me good.’

Ryan Garcia smirks at Gervonta Davis during the early rounds of their Saturday night bout

The two rivals exchanged a post-fight hug for the cameras, putting to bed their weeks-long feud.

Things nearly turned violent at Friday’s weigh-in when Davis ignited a shoving match with Garcia.

Afterwards, Davis’ trainer accused one of Garcia’s promoter, boxing legend Bernard Hopkins, of cheating.

Hopkins stood on the periphery of the near-melee, and appeared to rub his hand across Davis’ back at one point, drawing the ire of the Baltimore native and his camp.

‘I should’ve slapped the s*** outta B-Hop as soon as he touched me,’ Davis wrote in a since-deleted tweet.

Then on Saturday morning, Davis’ trainer Calvin Ford promoted a theory on social media that Hopkins was rubbing testosterone cream on the 28-year-old’s back in order to taint a drug test.

‘Coach beware of B hop and testosterone cream,’ read a text message that Ford shared on Instagram. ‘[It] will make you test dirty. Be careful.’

But on Saturday in Las Vegas, cooler heads prevailed in the post-fight exchange.

‘I know we talked a lot of trash leading into the fight, but [Davis] knows what it is,’ Garcia said. ‘It’s all love at the end of the day. I was honored to be in the ring with a great fighter and I respect him a lot.’

Her Hopkins’ hand can be seen on Davis’ lower back during Friday’s face-off with Garcia

Ford promoted a theory on Instagram that Hopkins was rubbing testosterone cream on Davis

There weren’t any belts on the line on Saturday, where the two fights agreed to fight at a 136-pound catchweight.

There was a rehydration clause for the fight, prohibiting the boxers from gaining more than 10 pounds following Friday’s weigh in, and both reportedly weighed around 144 on Saturday morning.

Garcia’s future could be at junior welterweight, where the impressive Josh Taylor is waiting at 19-0. Taylor is scheduled to fight former lightweight champion Teófimo López in New York on June 10.

And if a deal can’t be reached with the Brit, Taylor’s countryman Jack Catterall (26-1) and American Regis Prograis (28-1) would make for compelling opponents for Garcia, whose only major victory has come against Luke Campbell.

Davis, meanwhile, has a number of options at lightweight, where undefeated Americans Devin Haney and Shakur Stevenson are waiting for a major pay-per-view opportunity.

Haney first has to fight Vasiliy Lomachenko on May 20 – and that’s anything but a given – but the winner could conceivably find themselves in a bout with Davis.

Australian George Kambosos Jr. could be another option for Davis down the road.

Regardless of who he fights next, Davis appears to have secured his status as a pay-per-view headliner, and that would turn him into one of the sport’s biggest earners.

A woman identifying herself as the mother of boxer Gervonta Davis’ child has retracted domestic violence allegations against him following a recent 911 call she made

But before Davis can think about his next fight, he has his own legal troubles to deal with.

He’s scheduled to be sentenced in Baltimore on May 5 after pleading guilty to four charges in a hit-and-run incident from November of 2020 that resulted in several injuries.

The judge in the case previously rejected a plea deal that would have spared Davis any prison time.

Then on May 26 in Florida, Davis has another court date, this time to on accusations of battery.

His accuser, the mother of Davis’ daughter, has requested that the charges in that case be dismissed.