By Matt Lieberman: Promoter Eddie Hearn wants to know Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis’ asking price for him to agree to a unification fight against IBF super featherweight champion Tevin Farmer on DAZN. Hearn is asking the unbeaten Tank Davis (22-0, 21 KOs) to Tweet a number that he wants in the millions for him to come over to DAZN to face Farmer (30-4-1, 6 KOs).
Thus far the promoters for WBA super featherweight champion Davis at Mayweather Promotions haven’t shown interest in letting him fight Farmer on DAZN. Even though it’s a fight that Davis would likely win, Mayweather Promotions CEO Leonard Ellerbe has been resistant to making that fight happen.
Tank Davis will make career high payday for Tevin Farmer fight says Hearn
“Let Tank come, make a career-high payday, and if he’s good enough to win, he can stroll back to Showtime with his straps,” said Hearn to Fighthype. “But if you’re Leonard Ellerbe, you can’t go online and say, ‘Yeah, well, Tank’s making…’ He isn’t making $5 million [per fight]. Don’t pretend he’s making $5 million. So, I hope they are paying him that kind of money. They want Tank to be a pay-per-view fighter, agreed?
So will they put Tank against Farmer on pay-per-view as his first fight? Yes. How many buys does that do? I would’ve said 150-200 [thousand buys]. Even at 300, 350, 400, more people watch on DAZN. So you can’t say you want to put that fight on Showtime PPV, because it’s a bigger audience. It’s not. Internationally it would be a bigger audience doing it on DAZN with our international TV partners. So that excuse is just bulls–t.”
Gervonta is with Showtime Boxing, and he likely wouldn’t be able to fight on DAZN even if he wanted. Hearn is obviously pushing for that fight hard, because it’s easily the biggest payday for Farmer right now. It’s hard to imagine Farmer, 29, will ever get a bigger payday against anyone else. What makes it imperative for Hearn to put the Davis-Farmer fight together is the high possibility that Farmer will lose his IBF title against somebody. He might not even win his next fight against Joseph Diaz Jr. That’s going to be a tough fight for Farmer, because Diaz Jr. has boxing skills and power. For his part, Farmer is just a slick boxer, who wins his fights by out-boxing his opponents.
Hearn asks Gervonta Davis to tell how much he wants for Tevin Farmer fight
“So tell us what money is right,” said Hearn in sending a message to Gervonta. “Tank, give me your number. Go on social media tonight and post just a number. It doesn’t have to be any currency; just put any number. It might be 7. Just tweet ‘7,’ and we’ll offer it. Do you know what I mean?”
Hearn seems very needy when it comes to making the Davis vs. Farmer fight. That’s not the way he should be going about making the fight. The reality is, Mayweather Promotions pick guys that feel are good matches for Gervonta to fight.
— TEVIN FARMER (@TevinFarmer22) August 24, 2019
The fact that they’re not doing that with Farmer is a pretty big hint that they don’t want that fight at this time. As such, Hearn needs to get a hint, and move on and find guys that are willing to fight Farmer. Jo Jo Diaz is one of them. But as vulnerable as Farmer is, Hearn needs to be very selective in who he matches him against.