LAS VEGAS – Ryan Garcia admitted after his knockout loss to Gervonta Davis that the weight restrictions prior to their fight affected how he felt when he entered the ring Saturday night at T-Mobile Arena.

Garcia also acknowledged that he willingly accepted the terms of his contract and shouldn’t use weight as an excuse for why Davis knocked him out in the seventh round. The contracted catch weight for their 12-round, non-title fight was 136 pounds and neither fighter was allowed to weigh more than 146 pounds at a second-day weigh-in late Saturday morning.

“I mean, from an honest like perception of it, I didn’t feel too good,” Garcia said during his post-fight press conference. “I mean, I felt a little weak, you know, going into the ring. My legs didn’t feel too much under me, but once the fight got going, you know, it kinda all came together. So, I can’t really pin [losing on] that too much. It is what it is. I signed the contract and that’s that.”

The 5-foot-10 Garcia weighed in at 135.5 pounds Friday afternoon, slightly more than the 5-foot-6 Davis (135.1). Garcia added nine-plus pounds between weigh-ins and came in at 144.9 on Saturday morning, again higher than Davis (144.1).

Both boxers were allowed to add as much weight as they wanted from the time of their second weigh-in until they entered the ring for a fight that began approximately nine hours and 20 minutes after they made weight again Saturday morning.

Davis drew criticism from Garcia and his team throughout the promotion of their fight for demanding weight restrictions during negotiations.

Garcia weighed in at the junior welterweight limit of 140 pounds for his previous fight – a sixth-round knockout of Dominican southpaw Javier Fortuna last July 16 at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. Davis fought once in the 140-pound division, but his three bouts between his 11th-round knockout of former WBA world super lightweight champ Mario Barrios in June 2021 and his knockout of Garcia were contested at the lightweight limit of 135 pounds.

On Saturday night, Davis (29-0, 27 KOs) dropped Garcia with a short, left hand in an exchange with just under a minute to go in the second round. Garcia recovered from that knockdown and got back into their fight, but Davis’ hard left to his body caused a delayed reaction and made Garcia take a knee with 1:30 to go in the seventh round.

Garcia (23-1, 19 KOs) couldn’t get off one knee in time to beat the count of referee Thomas Taylor, who stopped their Showtime Pay-Per-View main event at 1:44 of the seventh round.

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.