Young, unbeaten, and wildly popular boxers are frequently discouraged from entering the ring for major matchups because of the tradeoff between risk and profit. On Apr. 22, inside T-Mobile Arena, Gervonta “Tank” Davis and Ryan Garcia made the decision that the benefit exceeded the risk and entered the ring to battle.

Both fighters had their moments in the thrilling match, but Davis had the largest thanks to a significant knockdown he received from a left hand in the second round. Tank proved to be too much for Garcia, who was knocked out in the seventh round by a vicious body shot.  

“One man knew they would leave the ring as a larger star after years of talking trash and demanding the battle,” senior Shamari Gittings said. “The others would be forced to step back and reorient themselves. Everyone, in my perspective, received what they anticipated. Everybody wanted a knockout or a stoppage, and they all got an exciting fight.” 

With boxing losing interest from people all over the world, the importance of these two young stars getting in this ring was crucial. After the fight, Tank said that Garcia was his hardest fight yet. 

“The fight was not a title match because neither Davis nor Garcia is the super lightweight champion,” senior Amari Gittings said. “Due to the competition between two top boxers with impeccable records and huge fan bases, it feels more like one. Boxing fans complain that this particular match doesn’t occur frequently enough. Some of my friends and I had a different prediction for how the fight would turn out. That simply demonstrates the intensity and anticipation that lead up to a fight of this nature.”

The event’s true beauty, for any diehard boxing fan, is in the fact that it took place at all. Davis-Garcia is a rarity during the same year as similar super fights like Errol Spence Jr. vs. Terence Crawford and Tyson Fury vs. Oleksandr Usyk keep failing.

“Due to a frustrating shift of circumstances that go far beyond the simple idea that athletes desire to face challenging obstacles and push themselves, super fights in boxing are either never held or delayed by several years,” senior Tristan Linback said. “This fight, however, was not one of those, and everyone deserves to recognize these two for all the work they put into making this happen.” 

The only remaining question is what both of these fighters will do next. 

“I believe Ryan should step up to 140, pick up some wins, and then perhaps pursue the rematch with Tank again,” Gittings said. “Tank should continue to box at 135 and perhaps take on the winner of Loma and Haney, in my opinion. Tank, in my humble view, defeats all lightweights.” 

They both trained just as hard for this battle and treated each other with respect, despite the fact that there are sacrifices associated with a tremendous fight like this, such as what Garcia endured. In just the United States, this fight brought in about 1.2 million pay-per-view purchases. I believe it’s safe to say that this fight brought back boxing.