The bout between Ryan Garcia and Gervonta Davis was a box-office success by all accounts. 

Their April showdown generated approximately 1.2 million pay-per-view buys and $22.8 million in ticket revenue.

Although Garcia lost the fight due to a seventh-round knockout, he believes he’s a significant reason why the fight was a blockbuster, and why Davis will entertain the idea of giving him a rematch down the line. 

“He's going to have to come to me. Do you know why? Because he can't sell pay-per-views,” Garcia told BoxingScene.com in an interview. 

“He can't be a star if he’s doing 150,000 buys [before fighting me]. How can he be a star? I popped him up, remember that. I gave him some stardom. Now, he's poppin'. You need two fighters to tango. So if he thinks he can come back and fight some random dude and do a PPV, he's not. But we'll see what he does.”

Davis has starred in six straight PPV events and has been a multi-city draw across the United States during that stretch, beating the likes of Leo Santa Cruz, Mario Barrios, Isaac Cruz, Rolando Romero, and Hector Luis Garcia along the way. 

The 135-pound knockout artist enforced a 136-pound catchweight for the Ryan Garcia clash, and Garcia has since stepped up back to 140 pounds, as he’ll be making his return on Dec. 2 against Oscar Duarte at the Toyota Center in Houston on DAZN.

Davis and Garcia are among a talented group featuring the likes of Devin Haney, Teofimo Lopez Jr., Shakur Stevenson, and Regis Prograis, among many others, who can make big fights with one another. 

Garcia says he’s the cream of the crop as the marquee attraction for future mega fights. 

“At the end of the day, they are all going to need me, and that's just facts,” said Garcia. “I can make way bigger fights than [Davis] than he can make by himself. So he's going to have to see me for the money because he likes money. He should be thanking me. I just blessed him with around $30 million. He should be like, 'damn, alright you're a good guy.' But he's always poking jabs and talking sh!t because he knows that wasn't me [in the fight].”

Manouk Akopyan is a sports journalist, writer, and broadcast reporter. He’s also a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America and the MMA Journalists Association. He can be reached on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube at @ManoukAkopyan, through email at manouk[dot]akopyan[at]gmail.com, or via www.ManoukAkopyan.com.