Oscar De La Hoya doesn’t really believe that boxing needs to be saved.
The boxer promoter in the Hall of Fame applied just one familiar slogan – “the fight to defend boxing” – to Gervonta Davis-Ryan Garcia’s pay-per-view match on Saturday in Las Vegas. Vegas to Prove: This is a big game. event.
“It’s a clash of giants,” Garcia’s promoter told Boxing Junkie. “Now, with today’s media, it makes it much bigger.”
Indeed, Davis (28-0.26 KOs) and Garcia (23-0.19 KOs) are two of the most famous figures in the sport.
That is due in part to their competence and success. Who doesn’t love undefeated rising young artists?
It goes beyond that, however. Davis and Garcia are masters at using social media to market themselves. Their appeal is not limited to their sporting careers; they are also personalities that resonate with their followers backstage.
De La Hoya, the boxing face of his day, did not have social media as a tool. He couldn’t be more pleased when Davis and Garcia do.
“They know how to play the game,” he said.
As a result, Davis, who had more experience than Garcia in big fights, was in the arenas not only in his hometown of Baltimore, but also in Brooklyn, Los Angeles, Las Vegas and other boxing furnaces. As De La Hoya put it, “Gervonta Davis has something special.”
Garcia has the look of a movie star along with boxing skills and self-marketing. Sound familiar? De La Hoya is credited with pushing the boundaries of the sport for the same reason.
“Ryan Garcia has a huge fan base,” De La Hoya said. “And that is another group of fans, a group of female fans. It will be epic when people hear about the pay-per-view numbers this fight has made. You have to attribute that to a lot of women who will buy pay-per-view because of Ryan Garcia.
“… Attracting female fans is unprecedented. I would say the last person to do it was myself.
Garcia is a handsome guy who is knowledgeable about marketing and knocks most of the people he comes across. De La Hoya said Davis was a dependable “worker’s warrior” who also destroyed everything in his path.
De La Hoya called the match “the best of both worlds.”
“I keep saying this is the fight to save boxing,” he said. “It just reminds me of me and [Felix] Trinidad. Bob Arum and Don King call it the fight to save boxing. Every decade there is a fight to save boxing. Although boxing doesn’t need saving, this fight is very unique.
“In terms of popularity, this is the biggest fight of this decade. This is it. Perfect.”
