NORTH HOLLYWOOD, Calif. Oscar De La Hoya was present promoting Gilberto Ramirez’s upcoming fight against Dmitry Bivol at the Brickhouse Boxing Club on Tuesday, and although the light heavyweight tilt is one of the more intriguing bouts of the year, The Golden Boy was also fielding questions about one of the handful of super fights the sport has to offer.
On Monday, Gervonta Davis cryptically tweeted “done.”
Five minutes later, Ryan Garcia tweeted “done deal.”
Fight fans got in a frenzy, adding the two tweets together to assume the much-discussed fight was finally happening.
Twenty minutes later, Davis poured ice-cold water on the subject by adding: “I’m just f—— around. I’m bored on this plane.”
Garcia promoter De La Hoya shed more light on the situation and overall negotiations less than 24 hours later during Ramirez’s media workout.
“It’s being worked on. That’s it. It’s a big fight. It’s a huge fight. Fights like this take forever,” De La Hoya told BoxingScene.com and other reporters. “Do I feel it’s going to get made? Yes – and I’m excited. But this is a huge fight with a lot of details.”
“Gervonta and Ryan I’m sure are, Gervonta is teasing the fans out there. It reminds me [of the promotion of Floyd] Mayweather vs. [Conor] McGregor. They were teasing everybody, and the anticipation was just huge. This fight is going to be a huge fight.”
The Baltimore-bred Davis (27-0, 25 KOs) and the Southern California-based Garcia (23-0, 19 KOs) have been linked for a potential fight for years.
Their paths have not come close to crossing, however, due to promotional and network ties.
In recent months, Garcia has been adamant that he wants to continue his career at 140 pounds after weighing in past the lightweight limit in his last two fights due to contracted catchweights as preferred by his opponents.
Davis, meanwhile, has campaigned across 130, 135, and 140 pounds across his last four fights.
De La Hoya is confident all of the contractual hurdles can be overcome in order for the two stars to finally square off.
“If Ryan and Tank fight, they should be fighting each other next. That’s what the fans want. That’s what we want as a promoter. I don’t have any news whatsoever. I don’t know how close we are. I don’t know how far apart we are. But do I feel confident this fight is going to be made? Yes,” said De La Hoya.
“We’re going to keep going back and forth. That’s all that we can do. We obviously want this fight to happen relatively sooner than later. I don’t know when that later or sooner is going to be. But do I feel that it can happen? Absolutely.”
Davis last fought in May and knocked out Rolando Romero with one punch in the sixth round.
Garcia last fought in July and dropped Javier Fortuna three times and stopped the former titleholder inside six rounds.
Manouk Akopyan is a sports journalist, writer and broadcast reporter. He’s also a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America and MMA Journalists Association. He can be reached on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube at @ManoukAkopyan, via email at manouk[dot]akopyan[at]gmail.com or on www.ManoukAkopyan.com.