LAS VEGAS – Hector Luis Garcia considers what happened closer to the beginning of the eighth round of his fight against Gervonta Davis as impactful as the damaging left hand Davis landed toward the end of it.

The Dominican southpaw recalled during an interview with krikya360.com that a break in the action caused by a fight among fans at ringside January 7 disrupted his rhythm and made the bout more difficult for him once the action resumed. Referee Earl Brown stopped their lightweight title fight with 2:08 to go in the eighth round once he noticed the commotion that attracted a lot of attention near the ring.

Brown sent Garcia and Davis to neutral corners while security escorted a group of fans from their ringside seats at Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C. Garcia grew cold, he said, by the time he and Davis were brought back together.

Davis drilled him with a left hand that wobbled Garcia with just under 20 seconds remaining in the eighth round. Garcia remained on his feet until the eighth round ended, but blurry vision left him unable to continue.

Brown declared Davis the winner by technical knockout early in the ninth round. Baltimore’s Davis led on the scorecards of judges Steve Rodas (79-73), Wayne Smith (79-73) and Dave Moretti (78-74) through eight rounds.

“I specifically remember that the fight was stopped in the eighth round because there was a fight outside of the ring,” Garcia said, according to his translator. “And that really screwed me up. It made me cold. I couldn’t warm up again. And then, once I felt like I couldn’t get warmed up again, it locked me up. So, I feel like that was the moment that truly turned things against me. I was wondering why they stopped the fight at that time. That’s the moment that I’ve replayed in my mind.”

Garcia (16-1, 10 KOs, 3 NC) will fight for the first time Saturday night since he suffered his first professional loss versus Davis (29-0, 27 KOs), who retained his WBA world lightweight title that night. He has moved back down to the 130-pound division to defend his WBA super featherweight crown against mandatory challenger Lamont Roach (23-1-1, 9 KOs), of Upper Marlboro, Maryland, on the Showtime Pay-Per-View portion of the David Benavidez-Demetrius Andrade undercard at Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino’s Michelob ULTRA Arena (8 p.m. ET; 5 p.m. PT; $74.99).

The 32-year-old Garcia is fully focused on Roach, yet he can help but wonder what would’ve happened had the abovementioned break in the action not occurred during the biggest fight of his career nine months ago.

“There was a fight outside the ring, and then the fight resumed,” Garcia said. “That’s when Gervonta landed a really good punch against me, and it made my vision blurry. I was seeing double. I was there physically, defending myself, but when I looked at him all I could see was a blur.

“I remember watching the fight again on TV and I saw myself going to the wrong corner, to Gervonta’s corner, and the referee kind of turned me around, like, ‘Nope, this isn’t your corner. You’ve gotta go that way.’ That made me say, ‘Oh, f---! I was really messed up, huh?’ And then the rest is history, how the fight got stopped and everything.”

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for krikya360.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.