Ryan Garcia has admitted that he was carrying a rib injury when he fought Gervonta Davis last April.
The two stars met in a huge contest in Las Vegas which Davis won with a seventh-round stoppage and this has resulted in a period of reflection for Garcia.
Speaking about the fight on Brian Custer's Last Stand podcast, Garcia revealed that he picked up a rib injury in sparring which sent him to hospital.
With Davis being a fighter known for his immense power, Garcia's decision to still step into the ring with a major injury will be seen as a foolish one, but the 25-year-old decided to go ahead with the fight regardless of the condition he was in.
“I did go in the ring with a rib injury, a separated rib from sparring,” Garcia said.
“I was dehydrated and it was like one of the first shots of sparring. I didn’t even get hit hard. My rib just [sunk] in and I had to go to the hospital, spent there some time, and I couldn’t even run. I couldn’t do anything. It was about two weeks before the fight.
"There was nothing that I could do. I decided that I wasn’t gonna pull out. Too much time [had] been put into this and too much things went into making this fight happen. I wasn’t gonna pull out.”
Garcia is set to return to the ring for the first time since that loss to Davis on December 2 when he takes on Oscar Duarte in a super lightweight contest which can be seen live on DAZN.