Ryan Garcia won’t fight in January, going straight to Gervonta Davis fight in April

Ryan Garcia will not be going ahead with a planned Jan. 28 fight against Mercito Gesta, instead focusing himself on the agreed April 15 mega-fight with Gervonta “Tank” Davis.

Garcia vs Gesta was slated to be Garcia’s “tune-up” fight in January, and would have given him an opponent who is a southpaw, like Davis, and of similar size to Gervonta.

“Been thinking about it during the time they were figuring out this fight, and I feel the fans and everyone who supports boxing have seen these tune-ups already,” Garcia wrote on social media. “It’s time that we give the fans what they want. Also, he requested the tune-up, not me, so let him handle business. Let’s go!

“Fuck the tune up. Bring on Tank. Sparking him out in two!”

Garcia (23-0, 19 KO) and Davis (27-0, 25 KO) have a deal in place to meet on Apr. 15 in Las Vegas in a Showtime pay-per-view main event. It was a slow crawl to get that deal fully over the line, but it’s happened.

Davis will still have his Jan. 7 bout against Hector Luis Garcia, which is also going to be carried by Showtime PPV.

Losing Garcia vs Gesta is not that big a blow for boxing fans, probably; for one thing, Garcia is right that fans have tired of these foregone conclusion main events, and even if that’s not the real reason this isn’t going through, it’s still true. The night already had a better fight, anyway, with Showtime’s Jermell Charlo vs Tim Tszyu matchup for undisputed at 154 lbs, so it’s not like a Saturday in January just went dark.