Self-proclaimed ‘face of boxing’ Gervonta Davis has emerged as one of the biggest pay-per-view draws in the sport and as a result the opportunity to fight him is one that his lightweight rivals dream of. Whilst lightweight unification contests are continuously pushed back, ‘Tank’ has been linked with a return to the ring against an alternate contender and the trainer of one of his lightweight rivals has now revealed who will be in the opposing corner.
Davis stopped Frank Martin in what was both his first defence of the WBA lightweight title and his lone appearance of 2024 thus far, halting ‘The Ghost’ in the eighth-round of their Las Vegas showdown to stamp his authority on the 135lb division and further the common opinion that he is the man to beat at the weight.
Since then, the Baltimore-born knockout artist has been linked with the likes of Vasyl Lomachenko (IBF) and Shakur Stevenson (WBC) in title unification contests but with both men deemed unavailable for the time being, Davis has recently been touted to appear on December 14th in an outing to keep up his activity.
In an interview with Mill City Boxing, Humberto “Chelo” Betancourt, trainer of Edwin De Los Santos, revealed that the Dominican lightweight was offered the chance to fight Davis but that the WBA champion has decided on a meeting with WBA super-featherweight champion Lamont Roach Jr. instead.
“We were getting ready for Tank bro, to tell you the truth.”
“Yes, we were [offered the Tank fight], but did they accept it? No, they didn’t. They denied the fight, I guess they chose Lamont Roach. That’s a good fight, I ain’t knocking them but he is 130lbs going up to 135, like Shakur [Stevenson] says, why not fight somebody that is a natural 135lber?”
Roach has strung together a six-fight win streak since defeat to Jamel Herring back in 2019, that being the lone blemish on his record. ‘The Reaper’ outpointed former ‘Tank’ opponent Hector Luis Garcia to claim the 130lb WBA strap back in November and dominated against Ireland’s Feargal McCrory back in June.
Light-heavyweight fan-favourite David Benavidez appeared on the Tank-Martin undercard back in June and has been linked to a fight on the December bill before Davis’ main-event once again – although rumours of a scrap with David Morrell would supposedly see that fight become a main-event on an alternate date.
Meanwhile, Betancourt went on to admit his interest in a fight between De Los Santos and Frank Martin on the December 14th card, with the latter hoping to bounce back from a first career defeat.
Other reports suggest that a potential Davis-Roach card could take place on December 21st but the fact that this date collides with the rematch between Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk means that PBC would be unlikely to proceed with the idea.
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