This week, Gervonta “Tank” Davis and Ryan Garcia met for a pair of press conferences in New York and California. As the two lightweight contenders promoted their upcoming fight, Garcia offered a bit of information regarding the contract he signed.
“He likes to fight people with no power, so he’s tying to weight drain me…There’s a rehydration clause, I can’t gain more than ten pounds,” he told Brian Campbell and Luke Thomas of Morning Kombat.
A rehydration clause is a negotiation and gamesmanship tactic that has been used by a select number of champions in recent years. When the two fighters meet for their joint weigh-in on April 21, 2023, Garcia and Davis will not be able to weigh more than 136 pounds. In the hours after the weigh-in, Garcia nor Davis will be able to gain more than 10 pounds before the main event.
The implementation of a rehydration clause has drawn criticism from a number of fans, media personalities and former champions.
“We’ve never seen anything like this. Like I said, we’ve never seen a person get put in a catchweight and a rehydration clause,” Nestor Gibbs of Tha Boxing Voice said on Thursday.
“If I’m Ryan and his team, I don’t take that clause,” former champion Andrew Ward said during an episode of ESPN’s State of Boxing on Thursday.
In response to the criticism levied against him, Gervonta “Tank” Davis has offered a response to those who are not fans of the rehydration clause.
“He’s a bigger fighter and he’s only growing,” Davis told a group of reporters following a press conference in California.
“He’s coming from like 170, 180. Why would I not have a rehydration clause in there? So he can blow back up to 150, 160 around the time we fight? No. I’m not dumb.”
Ryan Garcia and Gervonta “Tank” Davis will meet at the T-Mobile Arena on April 22, 2023 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
