By Dan Ambrose: Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis will be making a mandatory title defense of his WBA Super World super featherweight title against #2 WBA Ricardo Núñez next month on Showtime World Championship Boxing on July 27 in his hometown at the Royal Farms Arena in Baltimore. Davis doesn’t have a choice in the matter if he wants to keep his WBA belt.
This will be PBC presented fight card. The fight card starts at 9:00 p.m. ET. Davis will be fighting at home in Baltimore, so there will be a lot of his fans that will be showing up to see him fight.
This is Gervonta’s second defense of his WBA 130-pound title he won last year in stopping Jesus Marcelo Andres Cuellar in the third round.
Fans critical of Davis’ choice of opponent
The news of the 24-year-old Davis (21-0, 20 KOs) defending his title against the 25-year-old Núñez (21-2, 19 KOs) has been met with a massive amount of criticism from boxing fans. Many of them aren’t familiar with the Panamanian Núñez, and the ones that aren’t dislike this fight.
Núñez has suffered losses in the past to journeyman Barnie Arguelles (11-9, 8 KOs) by a second round knockout in 2015, and Saimon Siris. Núñez has won his last 10 fights, albeit against poor opposition. The WBA don’t seem to mind, as they’ve given Núñez a #2 ranking. The downside of fighters like Núñez being given high rankings off wins over fluff opposition is sets up mismatches like one we’re about to see on July 27 when Gervonta defends against him. Núñez has stopped nine out of his last ten opponents. That’s an impressive stat until one looks at the opponents that Núñez has been facing. He’s been fighting a lot of novices and journeyman to accumulate knockouts.
Here are Nunez’s last 10 opponents that he beat to become the mandatory for Gervonta Davis:
– Eduardo Pacheco (22-31-3, 18 KOs)
– Elvis Torres (19-1-2, 11 KOs)
– Jeremy Triana (10-3-2, 9 KOs)
– Jesus Cuadro (17-5, 13 KOs)
– Yogli Herrera (29-23, 21 KOs)
– Rafael Hernandez (30-12-3, 24 KOs)
– Eric Castro (12-8, 10 KOs)
– Manuel Largacha (9-9-6, 4 KOs)
– Eric Walters (12-3-1, 6 KOs)
– Barnie Arguelles (11-9, 8 KOs)
“Everybody can fight their mandatory but me, huh?” said Tank Davis in response to a fan telling him that he should be embarrassed for defending against such a weak opponent as Núñez.
”It was always a goal of mine to bring a world title fight back to my city of Baltimore,” said Davis. “I’m excited and grateful to my team for helping make this happen on Saturday, July 27. Tickets will go fast, so don’t wait on buying them!”
The southpaw Davis obliterated his last opponent Hugo Ruiz (39-5, 33 KOs) by a first round knockout last February. The 33-year-old Ruiz was brought in as a replacement for former three division world champion Abner Mares, who suffered an eye injury that required surgery. Despite Mares’ credentials as a fighter, there wasn’t a whole lot of interest from hardcore boxing fans in seeing Davis face him. Mares had recently lost a rematch with Leo Santa Cruz, and there wasn’t any real upside in Davis fighting him after that. The fight was perceived as Davis defending against a physically played out former world champion, who has seen better days.
The fans want to see Davis fight the other top fighters at super featherweight like Miguel Berchelt, Andrew Cancio, Tevin Farmer, Alberto Machado, Jamel Herring, Scott Quigg, Lamont Roach Jr., Eduardo Hernandez, Joseph Diaz and Miguel ‘Mickey’ Roman. They also want to see Davis fight Vasiliy Lomachenko, but that’s not likely to happen due to the boxing politics.
Nunez has power to make it interesting
Gervonta will need to be somewhat cautious against Nunez on July 27, because the guy can punch a little. His record is atrocious obviously, but he’s got the power to give Davis some issues if he’s able to stick around long enough to land some shots in the fight. Unfortunately, Nunez probably won’t make it to the second round, so he’ll need to go all out in the first round if he wants to win.
The fans are already labeling Gervonta as a waste of talent with the way his promoters at Mayweather Promotions are keeping him under wraps by matching him against beatable opposition instead of taking some risks the talented fighters at 130 and 135. At this point, boxing fans would be pleased to see Gervonta take a small risk against the likes of Tevin Farmer or Andrew Cancio. Those guys guy would be good opposition for Gervonta to use as a springboard to get him ready to face the 31-year-old Lomachenko.
Davis needs to fight Lomachenko
There’s no point in Davis waiting until Lomachenko is in his forties before he faces him, because he won’t get credit if he waits until the two-time Olympic gold medalist is old, gray and in his rocking chair. Davis needs to face Lomachenko while he’s still relatively young. Loma is getting older, and pretty soon it won’t be interesting to see Davis fight him.