LAS VEGAS — Kyrone “Shut It Down” Davis worked hard for this. It was his first true training camp in years, and at around 9:30 a.m. Friday morning, his trainer, the respected Stephen “Breadman” Edwards informed him his fight against rising undefeated middleweight Elijah Garcia was off.

This was first reported by The Ring’s Jake Donovan.

Told by sources on the ground in Las Vegas that Elijah Garcia has fallen ill and forced to withdraw from bout vs. Kyrone Davis. No word yet on whether emergency replacement opponent will be sought for Davis. #TszyuFundora

— Jake Donovan (@JakeNDaBox) March 29, 2024

Davis (18-3-1, 6 knockouts) felt he was in the best shape of his life to face the 20-year-old Garcia (16-0, 13 knockouts) on the Tim Tszyu-Sebastian Fundora undercard on Premier Boxing Champions’ inaugural Amazon Prime event on Saturday (8pm ET/5pm PT) from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

“This is devastating,” Edwards said. “We were told in a phone call that Elijah is sick and not able to fight on Saturday night. He did say something in the press conference on Thursday, ‘If I’m not 100-percent, I won’t win,’ or something to that nature.

“Maybe he knew he was sick. I will not question Elijah’s manhood or his integrity. I am disappointed, because Kyrone had to take some tough fights on short notice. This was an eight-week training camp, and please quote me as saying this, I will not challenge Elijah’s manhood or integrity. Kyrone is obviously very upset, because he was ready.”

Needless to say, Davis was upset.

“It is like being punched in the gut before I even got in the ring,” said Davis, whose three losses are to David Benavidez, on short notice, the late Patrick Day and Junior Castillo, who has not fought since 2017. “It is rough. I am holding up. It is disappointing. I worked hard, I trained hard. The fight is off.

“I’ll strickle around this weekend and watch the fights. I know it is no one’s fault. All I was told was he was sick and could not fight.”

According to Garcia’s camp, he was supposed to weigh in Friday morning. He originally thought he was suffering from allergies, but when the symptoms got worse, he was taken to a medical care facility and diagnosed to have a severe sinus and respiratory infection Friday morning.

Garcia was looking forward to the challenge.

“I would say this is my toughest test,” Garcia told The Ring a few weeks ago. “I know Kyrone is really tough and has a lot of skill, so I’m not overlooking Kyrone at all. I know what is front of me. I have been training for a long time. I am in real good shape.”

Joseph Santoliquito is an award-winning sportswriter who has been working for Ring Magazine/RingTV.com since October 1997 and is the president of the Boxing Writers Association of America.
Follow @JSantoliquito

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