WBA lightweight champion Gervonta Davis is set to make the first defence of his world title when he takes on Frank Martin this weekend. However, the self-proclaimed ‘face of boxing’ was absent from the fight week arrivals and the hard-hitting 135lber has now revealed why.
Davis’ has not fought since his career-best win over Ryan Garcia in April 2023 as he sat patiently on the sidelines awaiting a decision from the WBA. As was expected, ‘Tank’ was upgraded to full WBA lightweight champion in November following Devin Haney’s decision to move up to super-lightweight and allow his undisputed lightweight crown to become fragmented.
Meanwhile Frank Martin has been relatively inactive himself, fighting just once since December 2022 – that being a tight unanimous-decision win over Artem Harutyunyan, who has also moved on to a lightweight world title shot of his own despite the defeat.
Harutyunyan was the fifth undefeated fighter that Martin has defeated thus far but none of those have been near the calibre of Davis, explaining why the champion goes into the contest as a sizeable favourite.
Although Davis failed to appear at the grand arrivals for the event in Las Vegas, his coach Calvin Ford did show his face and apologised to the fans before admitting that the abilities of his fighter have ‘scared him’ during this training camp, Boxing Scene reports.
“I want to apologize to the fans.
“He can’t make it at this moment because he’s been delayed, but he’s going to make it up to y’all on fight night. Trust what I’m saying to y’all. Y’all want to see this performance that he’s going to put on to the fans.
“We’re back in business. We’ve been waiting for this for a while.
“We want to put on a great performance, we want to put on a great performance for the fans at the end of the day.
“Watching him in camp, it scares me because of the things he’s doing and his maturity when he gets in that ring. I’ve seen him listen to a conversation, listen to what’s going on, and he’s real focused.
“It’s serious, because it’s a different type of fight. You can’t sleep on Frank. Frank is coming to put on that party.
“He showed it at the press conference, he showed it throughout the whole ordeal for being a young guy that’s coming on the scene at this level right here.
“I want people to leave, watch TV and leave the arena saying that’s one of the classiest fights we’ve seen since the old days.”
Regardless of Ford’s comments, Davis had tweeted his disappointment at the promotion of the event just hours before on his social media, insinuating that if the promoters cannot be bothered to properly advertise the fight, then he will also not be doing his part to help sell pay-per-views.
“The promotion for this fight been a**. Now watch [when] ion [I don’t] show up to the arrivals s**t today.”
Davis-Martin goes ahead on Saturday night, topping a stellar undercard that features the light-heavyweight debut of David Benavidez.
Boxing Social is now on WhatsApp! Join our channel by clicking here and getting all the latest boxing news direct to your phone.