Undefeated WBA super featherweight world champ Gervonta “Tank” Davis is without doubt one of the most gifted fighters in the sport of boxing. His combination of speed, power, balance, and ring instincts is unique in boxing and it’s scary to think that, at age 24, he’s not even in his full physical prime yet.
What he isn’t, though, is a superstar.
Forget what promoter Floyd Mayweather says about Davis being a pay-per-view star. He’s not. Compared to some of the big fish in the sport, he’s merely a blip on the radar.
Part of the problem is simply the fact that he’s a 130 lb. fighter in the United States. American fight fans don’t generally pay much attention to smaller-weight fighters and only begrudgingly acknowledge their greatness after a large body of work is there that forces them to do so. But even when acknowledging greatness in smaller fighters, they don’t tend to support them all that much financially. Bouts featuring lighter-weight fighters simply don’t move the needle when it comes to ratings and bottom-line money generation.
Davis has the raw ability to be the exception to this reality, however—if his team makes the right moves and he maintains his professional focus.
This past Saturday’s homecoming bout in Baltimore was a great first step in building to next-level stardom. A jam-packed and loud Royal Farms Arena turned a relative nothing of a fight against Panamanian mandatory challenger Ricardo Nunez into an event. Raucous, enthusiastic crowds will make Davis fights all the more electric and create the image of Davis being a true star in the sport.
The next step is opposition.
Nobody’s going to become a superstar fighting the Ricardo Nunezs and Francisco Fonsecas of the boxing world. Victories over Jesus Cuellar, Jose Pedraza, and Cristobal Cruz were nice and necessary, but, again, hardly star-making.
The problem with finding bankable, “name” opposition is that, at 130 lbs., there’s just not much there.
A title unification with IBF champ Tevin Farmer would be interesting, but Farmer is not a bankable name. Neither is WBC titlist Miguel Berchelt or WBA “regular” champ Andrew Cancio or WBO title holder Jamel Herring. All would be decent fights and respectable challenges—and unifying belts would be an excellent public relations move for Team Davis—but none are the “names” he needs to cross over to next-level success. Plus, in terms of resolving business conflicts in order to actually make these fights, they may be too much hassle for too little return.
Davis’ “names” will likely have to come from featherweight imports and fellow Premier Boxing Champions (PBC) fighters like Leo Santa Cruz, Gary Russell Jr., or Abner Mares (who was scheduled to face Davis this past February, but had to withdraw due to suffering a detached retina).
From there, the decision will be to either try and unify or move up in weight, where he may have his greatest chance at grasping at immediate superstardom.
Fighting (and beating) pound-for-pound darling Vasiliy Lomachenko at lightweight would be worth more to Davis’ bankability than wins over Santa Cruz, Mares, and Russell—combined. The critics would have to step aside, the doubters would have to quiet themselves, and anyone talking high-end, elite-level boxing would be forced to include Davis’ name alongside Saul Alvarez, Terence Crawford, and the three or four other names generally regarded as the best of the best.
The road to a Lomachenko bout would be long and treacherous. Given the business realities involved with Lomachenko being a prize possession of promoter Bob Arum and ESPN and Davis being tied to Mayweather Promotions and PBC, negotiations would be treacherous to the point of being nearly impossible. Davis and Mayweather would have to come in humble and willing to make many concessions to get this opportunity, but there’d be no greater or quicker path to where they want to go than through Lomachenko.
Can Gervonta Davis do all this and, perhaps more importantly, refrain from self-destructing via outside-the-ring distractions? He can—and he certainly is not lacking in ability to get anywhere he wants to go—but all signs point to his star having a very real ceiling to it.