The book on Gervonta Davis going into his fight Saturday with Ryan Garcia at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas was that he was one of the sport’s hardest hitters. And so, not surprisingly to many, Davis knocked Garcia out with a shot to the ribcage 1:44 into the seventh round.

It wasn’t, however, power that led Davis to this victory. It was his boxing skill, his ring IQ and his ability to capitalize on Garcia’s mistakes that carried him to the dramatic victory in their heavily hyped 136-pound fight.

Garcia overextended in the second, throwing a right at Davis, at a point when things seemed to be going in Garcia’s favor. Davis slipped the punch and threw a perfectly placed counter left hook that landed in the middle of Garcia’s face and put him down.

Davis, who did next-to-nothing in the first as he just took the measure of Garcia, took over the fight after that. He closed the distance expertly, fought at angles where he was able to land his shots and neutralize Garcia’s vaunted left hook and just score more.

He has tremendous power, but this guy is not simply a knockout artist. He’s clearly an elite boxer.

He predicted a seventh round finish and then delivered, upsetting those who bet the over in the process. The over-under was 7.5 rounds and the bout ended just short of that mark.

There was no magic to the seventh-round prediction, Davis admitted, but there was plenty of magic to his work in the ring.

“It was me just trying to get into his head, you know,” Davis said. “I really don’t know. But once I got in there with him, I felt skill-wise, it would be all me.”

And largely, it was. Judges had Davis up by scores of 58-56, 59-56 and 59-55, while Yahoo Sports had it 57-56 for Davis.

Davis ended it with a shot that not many saw. He dug under Garcia’s right arm and landed a left to the ribcage. Garcia backed up toward the corner but did not go down initially. But after another step back, he took a knee. Garcia seemed clear-headed as he took the count from referee Thomas Taylor, but he didn’t attempt to rise until Taylor had counted 10.

“He caught me with a good shot,” Garcia said. “[I will make] no excuses in here. I just couldn’t recover. That’s it. That’s all I have to say. He caught me with a good body shot.”

Asked if he was struggling to breathe, Garcia delivered a confusing answer.

“I’m not saying nothing but yeah, I couldn’t breathe,” he said. “I was going to get back up but yeah, I couldn’t get back up.”

Thus ended the biggest fight so far of 2023. It established Davis as one of boxing’s top stars and showed that while Garcia is an extraordinary talent, he needs to fight more often to become a fully finished product.