By Chris Williams: Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis wasn’t impressed with what he saw from IBF super featherweight champion Tevin Farmer (28-4-1, 6 KOs) with his harder than expected 12 round unanimous decision victory over fringe contender Francisco Fonseca (22-2-1, 16 KOs) last Saturday night on DAZN at Madison Square Garden in New York. Farmer, 28, struggled to beat a fighter that Davis destroyed by an 8th round knockout last year on August 26, 2017.
Davis completely dominated Fonseca from start to finish before the fight was eventually halted. Fonseca gave Farmer a lot of problems in a fight that was a tough one for him. Farmer won the fight by the scores 117-111, 117-111 and 117-111. He was getting hit a lot, and not looking nearly as good as Davis did in destroying Fonseca last year.
“Boring,” Gervonta Davis said on his social media site in commenting about Tevin Farmer’s performance against Francisco Fonseca last Saturday night on DAZN. “Trouble? I played with him [Fonseca] all night. You wanna see a murder?” Davis said to Badou Jack after he said, “I want to see Gervonta Davis vs. Tevin Farmer.”
Davis is right about him toying with Fonseca. It looked like Fonseca was wilting under the power of Gervonta’s punches from the moment the fight started until it was over with. Fonseca couldn’t handle Davis’ power no matter what. Davis, 24, wants to fight Farmer, but right now it’s not looking like a fight between them is possible.
Farmer is fighting on DAZN, and the only way he sees the match getting done is if Davis comes over to his platform to make the fight happen. Davis is with Mayweather Promotions and fighting on SHOWTIME. That makes it tough if not possible for a fight between Farmer and Davis to happen. Unfortunately some fights can’t get made. What that means is the boxing public will have to make up their own minds about who they feel is the better fighter of the two based on how well they do against common opponents.
Davis’ win over Fonseca was a far more one-sided and definitive fight than Farmer’s. The only thing one can conclude in watching Farmer and Davis beat Fonseca is Davis looks to be the much better fighter of the two right now. Whether that changes in the future due to inactivity for Davis is unknown. He’s not as busy as Farmer is right now, and that’s bad news obviously for his career. Perhaps that’ll change in the future. If not, then it’s hard to imagine Davis developing into the fighter that he could be if he were busier, and matched against the best.
“Loma and Tevin just went 12 whole rounds with people I killed, so what that makes them?” Gervonta said about Vasyl Lomachenko’s recent 12 round decision win over Jose Pedraza and Farmer’s victory over Fonseca.
Gervonta not only did a better job than Farmer in beating Fonseca, but he also outdid what WBA lightweight champion Vasyl Lomachenko (12-1, 9 KOs) did in laboring to a 12 round unanimous decision victory over Jose Pedraza (25-2, 12 KOs) on December 8 at Madison Square Garden in New York. Lomachenko beat Pedraza by the scores 117-109, 119-107 and 117-109. Davis would give Lomachenko a lot of problems right now, and possibly stop him if that fight gets made right now. The longer Lomachenko waits for that fight to happen, the more likely he’s going to lose to Davis. The two of them are going different directions. Lomachenko is getting older, and becoming more injury prone. He’s also fighting in a division that he’s not able to dominate like he did when he was fighting at featherweight and super featherweight.
Lomachenko doesn’t have the explosive punching power needed to dominate guys at lightweight. He’s forced to beat them by using his high volume punching attack, and when you fight like that, you get hit a lot. Even with Lomachenko boxing more, he’s still getting hit a lot more at lightweight than he did at super featherweight due to the fighters being taller with longer arms at 135 than they were at 130. Lomachenko has short arms, and that would handicap him against Davis, who has a 2 inch reach advantage over him in addition to his speed, youth and power advantage. Lomachenko would have a lot of problems against Davis if that fight is made now. If they wait 2 to 5 years before they make the fight, Lomachenko likely loses by knockout.
“DAZN pays more money,” Farmer said to Fighthype. “I’ve been wanting to fight him [Gervonta Davis]. That’s a guy I’m over right now. If the fight happens, it happens. If it don’t, it don’t.”
It doesn’t sound like Tevin is going to be fighting Gervonta anytime soon if ever with the way he’s talking. Tevin’s promoter Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Boxing USA talks a lot about how he wants to make the fight with Tevin, but this is the same promoter that has failed repeatedly to make a fight between his fighter heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua and WBC champion Deontay Wilder. Hearn talks a lot about wanting to make the Joshua-Wilder fight, but then he shows otherwise by offering Wilder a flat fee that amounts to being a small percentage of what the fight will take in. In the end, Hearn’s talking about wanting to make these fights comes off as him looking for cover to give the boxing public the impression that he wants to make the Joshua-Wilder and Davis vs. Farmer fight, but in reality it appears that he doesn’t want to make the fight.
“Leonard Ellerbe said, ‘There’s no way in the world that Gervonta is fighting me on DAZN.’ The crazy thing is I never heard such a thing where DAZN is paying all the money, so why would I go to SHOWTIME to fight for nothing when I’m over here with DAZN making more money? It just don’t make sense. Read between the lines. We’re getting paid,” Farmer said.
The way that Farmer is talking, he doesn’t sound like a fighter that wants any part of fighting Davis. He sounds like he doesn’t want that work. The punching power, foot speed, and the overall talent level of Gervonta would be a major problem for Tevin. He’s a good fighter, but he lose to Pedraza six years ago by an 8th round knockout, and he has a loss to Kamil Laszczyk. Granted, those defeats took place a long time ago before Farmer made improvements in his game, but it’s still difficult to see beating Davis with the way that he’s looking now. The difference between how Davis dealt with Fonseca and Pedraza is dramatically different from what we saw from Tevin.
It was a good performance by Tevin, 28, in beating Fonseca last Saturday, but he still got hit far too much in winning that fight. If Davis is able to hit Farmer as much as Fonseca did, it’s not going to end well for him. Davis hits way too hard for him to be able to land as often as Fonseca did, and he clearly will connect just as much if not more on Tevin. If was a good victory for Farmer, but he looks far below Davis in talent. Farmer is a better fighter than Fonseca, but not by much. Davis is another level than Fonseca.
David will be fighting former three division world champion Abner Mares (31-3-1, 1, 15 KOs) on February 9 in San Diego, California.
