By Sean Jones: Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis (22-0, 21 KOs) weighed 1.2 pounds overweight at Friday’s weigh-in for his fight against Yuriorkis Gamboa for their bout on Saturday for the vacant WBA ‘regular’ lightweight title. Davis weighed in at 136.2 lbs, which well over the 135-lb limit for the fight. Gamboa (30-2, 18 KOs) was more professional in making weight at 134.6 lbs.
Davis shoves Gamboa in what looked like a STAGED move
During the face off, Davis shoved Gamboa in an unprovoked move on his part. Gamboa never said a word during the face-off, and looked like Davis had already planned to push him ahead of time. Immediately both teams crowded together, and made sure that neither fighter was hurt. Davis is a happy go lucky person outside of the ring, which is why the shoving bit from today’s weigh-in looked so contrived.
It wouldn’t be surprising if Davis was told to shove Gamboa, because there were no words exchanged between them during the face off. Gamboa just stared at Davis like a fish, not blinking, and not showing any emotion.
There was absolutely no reason for Davis to shove Gamboa other than to try and get some badly needed attention from casual boxing fans in their fight. The problem with shoving is there’s always the potential for injury, and that would be disastrous for the overweight Davis.
Gervonta already struggling with the weight
It’s a bad sign that Davis is already having problems making weight for the lightweight division after coming up from super featherweight. If Davis can’t be depended on to weight for the 135-lb division, he’ll need to move up to 140, and hope that he doesn’t have problems there as well. Davis blows up between fights, and gets real big.
Although Davis has an hour to take off the 1.2 lbs, it’s unlikely that he will. That’s a lot of weight to take off in just one hour, and it’s unclear how much Davis values the WBA ‘regular’ lightweight title. If Davis, 25, is unable to lose the weight, then the WBA title will only be up for grabs for Gamboa on Saturday night.
Former IBF/WBA featherweight champion Gamboa and Davis will be shown on SHOWTIME from the State Farm Arena in Atlanta.
Jean Pascal vs. Badou Jack
In the co-feature weights, WBA secondary light heavyweight champion champion Jean Pascal (34-6-1, 20 KOs) weighed in at 174.8 lbs for his title defense against former two division world champion Badou Jack (22-2-3, 13 KOs). Jack weighed in at 174.6 lbs. Jack, 36, will be trying to win his first fight in two years since 2017. He’s coming off of lopsided 12 round unanimous decision to Marcus Browne last January. Pascal defeated Browne by an eight round technical decision last August.
Jose Uzcategui vs. Lionell Thompson
Former IBF super middleweight champion Jose Uzcategui (29-3, 24 KOs) weighed in at for his 10 round fight against Lionell Thompson (21-5, 12 KOs). Thompson weighed in at 168 lbs. Uzcategui will be looking to win his second fight since losing his IBF 168-lb title to Caleb Plant last January. In facing the 34-year-old Thompson, Uzcategui has an excellent chance of picking up an easy win.
