Ryan Garcia apparently thinks there was a turncoat in his midst as he was preparing to fight Gevonta Davis.
The fighters engaged each other Saturday night in front of a packed crowd at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Baltimore’s Davis ended up stopping Garcia with a body shot in the seventh round.
While the two seemed to settle their differences after the fight, the lightweight star from Victorville, California, claimed on social media that there was a “mole” during his training camp.
Davis himself had suggested during the week leading up to the fight that he had an inside man on Garcia’s team, although Garcia initially appeared to brush off that insinuation.
“Actually sad I had a mole in my camp,” Garcia wrote in a now deleted story to his Instagram account. “Like wtf that’s crazy but thank God it’s brought to light now.”
Added Garcia: “Also, didn’t mean for that to come off as an excuse or anything. I lost, period. I’ll come back but I’m just shocked that part of my team crossed me, someone close to me. Unbelievable. But it’s a testimony that you must be aware of everyone.”
It’s not clear whom Garcia was referring to, but on social media speculation ran rampant that an ex-sparring partner, Mongolian bantamweight Erdenebat Tsendbaatar, might have been the mole in question. Tsendbaatar himself posted a video stating that he had injured Garcia with a body punch during training camp. Tsendbaatar, however, followed up with a response insisting he was rooting for Garcia to beat Davis and that his initial remarks had been distorted by Google Translate.
Moreover, Garcia’s claim that the betrayer in question was “someone close to me” would suggest that that person would be a far more consequential figure within Garcia’s team rather than a hired hand.