Elijah Garcia will try to start redeeming himself February 15.
The Ring has learned that the 21-year-old middleweight will fight veteran Terrell Gausha in the 12-round main event that night of a three-fight show streamed by Amazon’s Prime Video. The site for the card headlined by Garcia-Gausha is still to be determined.
This event will mark the second of 2025 for Al Haymon’s Premier Boxing Champions and PBC’s first non-pay-per-view show. PBC’s first show of this year is scheduled for February 1, when undefeated light heavyweights David Benavidez (29-0, 24 KOs) and David Morrell (11-0, 9 KOs) will square off in the 12-round main event of a four-fight pay-per-view offering from T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Garcia (16-1, 13 KOs), of Wittman, Arizona, will fight for the first time since Kyrone Davis (19-3-1, 6 KOs) upset him by split decision in their 10-rounder June 15 at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. Davis beat Garcia on the cards of judges Eric Cheek (97-93) and Max De Luca (97-93), though Garcia won eight rounds according to judge John McKaie (98-92).
Gausha (24-1-1, 12 KOs) last competed on the same undercard on which Davis defeated Garcia. The Cleveland native, who represented the United States at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, lost a 12-round unanimous decision that night to WBC middleweight champ Carlos Adames (24-1, 18 KOs).
The strong, left-handed Garcia came in approximately three pounds overweight for his loss to Davis. He has since hired Las Vegas-based Bob Santos as his head trainer and is preparing to square off against Gausha in the unofficial “Fight Capital of the World.”
George Garcia Sr., Elijah’s grandfather, and his dad, George Jr., were his co-trainers before he lost to Davis. They are still expected to work his corner when he faces Gausha, but Santos will be Elijah Garcia’s chief second that night.
Elijah Garcia will attempt to regain some of the momentum he established before Davis upended him.
He burst upon the U.S. boxing scene in 2023, when he knocked out previously unbeaten Uruguayan contender Amilcar Vidal (then 16-0) in the fourth round, unanimously out-pointed Kevin Salgado (then 15-1-1) and stopped Armando Resendiz (then 14-1) in the eighth round. Garcia lost to Davis, of Wilmington, Delaware, in his only appearance of 2024.
Keith Idec is a staff writer for The Ring. He can be reached on X @idecboxing.