‘He can be great, but he’s not right now’: Hopkins talks improvements Garcia needs to make

Bernard Hopkins says Ryan Garcia has what it takes to bounce back from his loss to Gervonta Davis, but he’s going to have to improve his defense going forward.

Bernard Hopkins spent some time talking to Fight Hype about his thoughts on Ryan Garcia’s recent knockout loss to Gervonta Davis and breaks down what he views as the necessary improvements Garcia is going to make if he’s ever to fulfill all of his promise. Hopkins says he still believes Garcia can achieve his dreams in the sport, but adds he’s going to have to make a concerted effort to fix some fundamental flaws if his game in order to do so.

“I think he’ll be back sooner than later,” Hopkins said of Garcia. “And I think the opportunity to correct a lot of things that he brought over (from) the amateurs. The defense, even though you didn’t ask, based on his rounds of being in the fight, he still has to work on his defense. His defense should be tighter. It might not be that easy, and he might can’t achieve that, and he actually got to live with it.

“But if I was asked by Ryan Garcia...what do I see, which most people will see? The defense has to be tighter and he has to at least make the honest attempt to look at it and trust that it’s not in his future to fight with your head up when the action gets to rolling and you leave yourself exposed.

“Those small but big things later will cost you now. And it cost him for this big moment. He’s still young enough to come back. Obviously, yes. He still believes from what I heard in the dressing room, fire in the belly — upset, apologizing to everybody, which we also let him know ‘you don’t have to apologize to us. You know what you gotta do.’ Are we with you? I am. Golden Boy with you also.

“But personally, yeah, I believe that you have all that it takes to put this behind you and become great one day. But not now. You’re not great now. So let’s work towards being that.”