By Scott Gilfoid: WBO super featherweight champion Vasyl Lomachenko is going to need to wait patiently before he can face IBF champion Gervonta “Tank” Davis (18-0, 17 KOs) in a unification fight, because the match is not going to happen yet, says his promoter Floyd Mayweather Jr. Davis is only 22-year-old and still growing as a fighter.
There’s no rush to put the two together yet, as far as Mayweather is concerned. Davis looked absolutely sensational last Saturday night in smashing to bits No.1 IBF mandatory challenger Liam Walsh (21-1, 14 KOs) by a 3rd round knockout at the Copper Box Arena in London, England. Davis hurt Walsh with a jarring left hand to the head in the 3rd.
The shot stiffened the British fighter’s legs. Davis then calmly landed another equilibrium destroying left hand to the head of Walsh that toppled him over on the canvas. Walsh got back up but was easy prey for the shark-like Davis, who quickly overwhelmed Walsh in a final flurry of power blasts to the head.
It was good thing that referee Michael Alexander stepped in at that time to stop the massacre, because if the fight had been allowed to continue, it’s quite possible that Walsh would have been poleaxed. What I thought was particularly interesting was how Walsh immediately started bellyaching about the fight being stopped too soon by the referee Alexander.
Instead of Walsh thanking Alexander from saving him from being thrashed by Davis, he started harping about the stoppage, making it seem as if the fight should have been allowed to continue. Goodness knows what would have happened to Walsh had the fight gone on even 10 seconds longer. The man didn’t seem to understand that he need focus on boxing Davis instead of slugging with him in the final seconds.
“There’s no rush, Lomachenko has to rush because he’s 30 years old, so he has to rush,” Mayweather said via ESPN.com. “This kid [Davis] is still young so we’re going to take our time. We’re not ducking and diving any opponent, but we’re not focused on any other opponents right now.””
I totally agree with Mayweather about Davis still being young and not needing to be in a rush to fight Lomachenko. The fight needs to build still before it’ll be big enough to put the two champions together. I don’t think for a second that Lomachenko and Davis will meet while the two of them are in the super featherweight division. It’s more likely that Davis and Lomachenko will need up at lightweight or maybe even light welterweight in the future.
Lomachenko and his promoters at Top Rank just going to have to cool their jets so they can let the Gerovonta Davis fight marinate proper. You don’t want to put these two fine fighters together before the broth is still cooking. You’ve got to let it marinate so that the boxing public learns about the two. Davis is just now becoming known to the boxing public worldwide. It’s going to take a little longer before the casual boxing fans get on the Gervonta Davis express and become huge fans of his.
I think Davis would have an excellent chance of beating Lomachenko if that fight were to take place. The reason for that is because Davis’ hand speed and sneaky punching power would be really difficult for the Ukrainian fighter to take. Davis disguises his punching power in a clever manner. The boxing fans saw that last Saturday in his fight against Walsh. Davis was hitting Walsh with moderate power for the first 2 rounds. But in the 3rd round, Davis suddenly increased the power on his shots and he immediately had Walsh in bad trouble.
Lomachenko would have had the same problems if he’d been hit with the punches that Walsh was hit with. Walsh didn’t have weak punch resistance. He just didn’t have the super human ability to absorb blows that would have given much heavier fighters problems. The shots that Gervonta hit Walsh with in the 3rd round would have knocked out welterweights and junior middleweights in my opinion.
Those were tremendous shots thrown with a lot of torque behind them. Lomachenko is a good fighter, but he’s still just a tiny guy with a super featherweight frame. Lomachenko isn’t a fighter with a welterweight frame. He’s a true super featherweight. Davis’ power would be a problem for him.
“We’re not throwing any names out there but whoever takes the fight Gervonta has an equalizer that can change the fight,” said Mayweather. “We put him in this position [making a first defence in London] because we believe this kid can fight and he will be a superstar.”
The equalizer that Mayweather is referring to is Gervonta Davis’ left hand. He’s got major punching power in his left. We saw last Saturday night with Davis separating the 31-year-old Walsh from his senses in the 3rd round after clipping him with a left to the head. Walsh staggered after getting hit with the first big left hand from Davis. At that point, Walsh was a sitting duck and too hurt for him to survive the second big blast from Davis from another sledgehammer left hand to the head. Walsh collapsed on the canvas after taking the second left.
The fight could have been stopped at that point and I don’t think anyone would have complained at all, because Walsh was clearly out to lunch and was not going to be able to make it out of the round without him fighting smart. Walsh didn’t fight smart. He fought like he had lost his senses entirely. Instead of Walsh grabbing David in a bear-hug to keep him from finishing him off with the coup de grace, Walsh tried to fight back despite being hurt.
I don’t know what Walsh was thinking by him not trying to at least grab Davis in a clinch to keep him from getting his big power shots off. Like I said already, I think Walsh had lost his senses completely in the heat of the battle. You see that kind of thing in battles. Fighters get hurt and lose it completely with them doing crazy things inside the ring that make no sense. When you lose it as badly as Walsh did last Saturday in the 3rd round, the outcome only has one conclusion. As bad off as Walsh was, I think anyone would have finished him off at that point.
“I took my time, I thought we were going to go the distance,” Davis said to espn.com. “I was telling him he was too slow.”
Walsh was definitely too slow. That was obvious right off the bat. The hand speed wasn’t there for Walsh in this fight. He still might have done well if he’d been able to time Davis and jab him from the outside, but he didn‘t seem at all interested in doing either of those things. Walsh didn’t seem to know how to compete with a guy with hand speed.
I guess Walsh had been put in with too many slower guys during his boxing skills, and he wasn’t experienced enough against fast guys to know how to deal with the talent and ability that Davis had inside the ring. That’s the negative that you get when take a fighter like Walsh and put him in with a lot of fodder in record-padding fights to get him to the point where he’s the No.1 contender.
Yeah, Walsh was unbeaten with an impressive looking 21-0 record coming into the fight with Davis, but when he got out there last Saturday night, he wasn’t ready for the talent and speed of the American. That’s why it’s important to put slow fighters like Walsh in with fast guys from the get go so that he can learn how to beat guys with more hand speed and power than himself.
