LAS VEGAS – Elijah Garcia didn’t mean what he said to come off disrespectfully.

The 21-year-old middleweight realizes, too, that his last performance was the worst of his five-year pro career. The strong southpaw’s point during an interview with The Ring was that Terrell Gausha is 37 and the type of opponent, however capable and experienced, that he should defeat if he is to reach the potential he displayed during his three prior appearances.

Kyrone Davis upset Garcia (16-1, 13 KOs) by split decision in his last fight, a 10-rounder nine months ago on the Gervonta Davis-Frank Martin undercard at MGM Grand Garden Arena. Like Gausha (24-4-1, 12 KOs), the 30-year-old Davis (19-3-1, 6 KOs) is a right-handed opponent who is more boxer than puncher, crafty enough to win seven rounds apiece on the cards of judges Eric Cheek (97-93) and Max De Luca (97-93) last June 15.

John McKaie oddly scored eight rounds for Garcia, who won 98-92 on his card. Garcia is thankful, frankly, that neither Cheek nor De Luca agreed with McKaie and scored that fight for him.

Had he defeated Davis, Garcia would not have made the necessary changes to his team that have helped him better prepare for his first fight since the setback he hopes only temporarily knocked him off course for a middleweight title shot.

Switching trainers was especially tricky for Garcia because he had long been trained by his grandfather, George Garcia Sr., and his father, retired heavyweight George Garcia Jr. They live with Elijah Garcia, his wife and their two children on the farm he purchased in Wittmann, Arizona, about 45 minutes north of Phoenix.

Working with veteran trainer Bob Santos in Las Vegas required numerous sacrifices. Elijah Garcia accepted after missing weight by three pounds for the Davis bout, though, that he needed to fully focus on training and to get better sparring than Phoenix-area boxers who work full-time jobs could provide him.

Garcia has lived for almost nine months in Santos’ house and is eager to display the education he has absorbed against Gausha on the Sebastian Fundora-Chordale Booker undercard at Mandalay Bay’s Michelob ULTRA Arena. Their 10-round middleweight match will open a Premier Boxing Champions tripleheader on Amazon’s Prime Video (8 p.m. ET; 5 p.m. PT).

“It was a great learning experience,” Elijah Garcia told The Ring of losing to Davis. “I’m not gonna take anything away from Kyrone. He’s a great boxer. You know what I mean? He boxed me – that’s what he does. That’s what he did. And so, you know, he won. Fantastic. You know, if I would’ve won that fight, I probably still would’ve been training at home. You know what I mean? Here I am now with Bob. I’ve drastically improved. You know what I mean? I’ve just prepared the best I’ve ever been.”

Before Davis defeated him, Garcia began making a name for himself by knocking out then-unbeaten Uruguayan contender Amilcar Vidal, unanimously out-pointing Mexico’s Kevin Salgado in a 10-rounder and stopping rugged Mexican Armando Resendiz in the eighth round of an entertaining fight. He believed last March, before his fight with Davis was postponed 2½ months due to Garcia’s illness, that he would have earned a title shot by now.

“Things happen for a reason,” Garcia said. “And, you know, we’re just gonna move forward. I would love to fight Kyrone again in the future. You know what I mean? And I’m fighting Terrell Gausha. He’s very similar to the style, and it’s another tough fight against another veteran who has a lot of experience and that’s what I’m here for. I’m here to get better. I wanna be a world champion. And if I can’t beat guys like this, then what am I doing it for? I can go fight some bums and not get better at all and be happy. But that’s not the goal. The goal is to be a world champion.”