Oscar De La Hoya believes Ryan Garcia’s woes in the ring against Gervonta Davis were in part the product of a decision made many months earlier.

The head of Golden Boy Promotions stated in a recent interview that it was a mistake for his charge to forgo plans to take up a tune-up level bout ahead of his fight with Baltimore’s Davis last month.

The southpaw Davis wound up stopping Garcia with a body shot in the seventh round of their highly publicized 136-pound match at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

Prior to their fight, Davis had entered the ring more than three months earlier, in January, against Hector Luis Garcia, stopping the Dominican in nine rounds at Capitol One Arena in Washington D.C.

There were similar plans for Garcia to enter into a stay-busy fight in the same period—especially given that Garcia’s previous fight was in July against Javier Fortuna—but, in the end, the Victorville, California native declined to go through with one.

At the time, De La Hoya publicly expressed heavy concern that his client was possibly making a mistake.

In the interview, De La Hoya reiterated those concerns, while pointing out that he was unaware that Garcia had reportedly suffered an injury to his rib during training camp.

“I had zero clue whatsoever that he had a rib injury,” De La Hoya told FightHubTV. “I was wondering why he didn’t take the January fight. That was a huge concern, first of all, of him not taking that fight. That was huge.

“How can you keep a car idle in the garage and not turn it on for several months and then go think you’re gonna run the Daytona 500, it’s impossible. So that was a big concern for me.”

After the Davis fight, Garcia caused a stir when he insisted that a “mole” had infiltrated his team.

De La Hoya said he was not sure who the supposed backstabber was in Garcia’s camp but urged him to "re-arrange" his inner circle.

“I don’t know [who the mole was], I don’t know,” De La Hoya said. “I would love to know and I will get to the bottom of it but it’s interesting, it’s  interesting, when a fighter loses, he fires everyone. That’s just the way it is. I remember when I first lost, I fired everybody but I didn’t blame myself.”