gervonta “tank” davis vs. ryan garcia

In the Spring of 2023, young phenoms and crossover superstars Gervonta “Tank” Davis and “King” Ryan Garcia went toe-to-toe in a boxing mega-event that is still to this day, the last boxing match to generate over 1 million PPV buys. Swanson Communications was at the forefront of creating and executing an ambitious PR plan for an event that fans had been clamoring to see for years and which featured two of the sport’s most popular stars.

To kick off the promotion, our agency put together press conferences on back-to-back days in New York at the Palladium Times Square and Los Angeles at the Beverly Hilton, with over a hundred media attending in each location. The pair of events featured intense trash talk between the fighters and created a massive wave of impressions that built the momentum that would remain throughout the build up to fight night.

That momentum would lead to features in both the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, amongst many other traditional outlets. However, with two of this generation’s newest stars, non-traditional and social media outlets became more important than ever to reach the younger audience that followed or could be influenced to follow the event. The crown jewel of these efforts was Davis’ appearance with the super popular content creator Kai Cenat, who convinced Davis to reach out to Garcia to join the stream, ultimately creating a viral moment that broke through past traditional boxing audiences.

With the big fight night nearly there, the agency led efforts to organize a massive series of fight week events for hundreds of media members that flocked to Las Vegas to see Davis and Garcia up close. Capped off by an electric outdoor weigh-in conducted in front of a crowd of thousands of fans, the agency pulled off one final media coup the night before the fight, arranging for Davis and Garcia to appear on ESPN’s flagship SportsCenter together with veteran anchor Stan Verrett. The interview lived up to expectations with the fiery exchange between fighters offering a perfect preview for fans who would be tuning in the next night.

In the end, Davis took home the victory by seventh round stoppage, while the fight itself proved a knockout success, garnering approximately 1.2 million PPV buys. In addition, the live gate at Las Vegas’s T-Mobile Arena clocked in an estimated $22.8 million in ticket sales, making it one of the top five live gates in Nevada boxing history.