By Dan Ambrose: Gervonta “Tank” Davis will be defending his WBA Super World super featherweight title against an opponent still to be determined in July near his hometown of Baltimore, Maryland, according to Lance Pugmire of the LA Times.
There isn’t a set date for Gervonta’s homecoming fight in July. Showtime World Championship Boxing will be the ones that televise Tank Davis’ next fight in July. Davis wants to fight three times in 2019 to make up for him having only fight in 2018.
The fight that is being built up right now is a unification match between Gervonta and IBF super featherweight champion Tevin Farmer for later this year. Farmer’s promoter Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Boxing USA wants to make the Davis-Farmer unification fight. However, if it gets made, it would need to be streamed on DAZN, which is the platform Farmer is signed with. Davis vs. Farmer is a big enough fight for it to do good numbers on DAZN and Showtime. Farmer’s co-promoter Lou DiBella is interested in matching him against Golden Boy Promotions lightweight contender Ryan “Kingry” Garcia (18-0, 15 KOs) in 2020 around this time. But if Farmer loses to Davis later this year in a unification fight, it’ll kind of put a damper on a fight between him and Ryan. The fight can still happen, but it would far less interesting with Farmer coming off of a likely knockout loss to Davis.
“In 12 months or so, [meeting Garcia] could be a huge fight,” DiBella said to the latimes.com about wanting to have Farmer defend against Ryan Garcia. “We have to look at all the possibilities.”
There’s no sense in DiBella looking that far into the future for Farmer unless he doesn’t plan on putting him in against Gervonta or any other dangerous threats. If Farmer is matched against nothing but beatable guys like the ones he’s been facing lately in wins over Jono Carroll, Francisco Fonseca and James Tennyson, then of course he’s not going to lose.
The undefeated Davis (21-0, 20 KOs) destroyed replacement opponent Hugo Ruiz (39-5, 33 KOs) by a 1st round knockout on February 9 on Premier Boxing Champions on Fox at the Dignity Health Sports Park, in Carson, California. Ruiz, 32, stepped in as a replacement opponent for former three division world champion Abner Mares, who pulled out of the match with the 24-year-old Tank Davis due to a detached retina he suffered in his left eye while training. Gervonta smashed Ruiz, treating him like a lower level fighter. Ruiz looked plenty powerful with some of the shots he was throwing. The problem was, Gervonta was a lot stronger, and every shot he landed did damage to the former WBC super bantamweight champion Ruiz. Mares has had eye surgery to repair his detached retina, but he’s been given clearance to return to training. However, it’s not realistic that Mares will be agreeable to fighting Davis in his first fight back after eye surgery. The way that Davis looked against Ruiz, you have to question whether Mares will ever look to reschedule a fight against him now. The 24-year-old Davis is looking too powerful at this point for almost anyone in the super featherweight division, let alone an aging fighter that is coming off of eye surgery, and a loss to Leo Santa Cruz.