By Allan Fox: Promoter Floyd Mayweather Jr says he’s open to setting up a fight between Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis and unified lightweight champion Teofimo Lopez, but he says Tank will need to be the A-side for that fight to happen.
Mayweather feels that it won’t be easy to put together a fight between WBA lightweight champion Tank (23-0, 22 KOs) because of greed. However, with Mayweather already saying that he wants Davis, 25, to be the A-side, it suggests that he would want him to get the bigger cut of the revenue.
Whether that’s something Top Rank and Teofimo are willing to agree to is unknown at this point. But it’s difficult to predict Teofmo agreeing to accept a smaller cut of the money against Tank Davis, especially with him only holding the WBA secondary 135-pound title.
Teofimo has a lot of options for big fights at 135 and 140. He’s probably not going to agree to smaller money against Tank right now. If Teofimo were coming off of a loss, then it would be understandable.
Mayweather insists Tank must be A-side against Teofimo
“It must make business sense on our side because we know no matter who Tank fights at lightweight, Tank has the biggest name at lightweight,” said Mayweather to ESPN’s First Take.
“Tank has one of the biggest names in the sport of boxing right now. Tank, with the things that he’s done and the noise that he’s making, and he’s selling out arenas, he has to be the A-side. Tank is not scared of anyone.
“The reason why we are not able to make certain fights with Top Rank is because if we could sit down at the table if Tank gets past Leo because I actually believe he can because it may not be easy.”
It doesn’t sound promising that a deal will be made for a fight between Tank Davis and Teofimo Lopez anytime soon. With the hardened stance that Mayweather is already making by saving that Tank Davis will need to be the A-side, that’s code for ‘pure trouble.’
It means that unless Teofimo is willing to agree to be second fiddle to Davis, who looked poor in his last fight against 38-year-old Yuriorkis Gamboa, the fight won’t get made.
Tank is already looking bad in fighting Leo Santa Cruz, who looked bad in his last fight at 130, instead of a top lightweight.
If Tank wanted to fight a super featherweight, he should have fought the best champion in that weight class in Miguel Berchelt or Shakur Stevenson. Those two are viewed as the top guys at 130 in the eyes of many boxing fans.
It’s going to be hard for Mayweather to demand that Tank be A-side against Teofimo if the pay-per-view numbers for the Davis vs. Santa Cruz fight are lousy on Saturday.
Floyd wants to make Davis vs. Teofimo Lopez fight soon
“Then we move on and fight one more fight, and hopefully, a fight with Teofimo can be made,” said Mayweather about a fight between Gervonta and Teofimo.
“It’s not easy like you think it is,” said Mayweather when asked why can’t he sit down and negotiate a fight between Teofimo and Gervonta Davis. “It’s not easy like you think it is to sit down and say, ‘I want this to happen,’ because you got guys that are very greedy and say, ‘We want this, and we want this.’
“We know that Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis is one of the biggest names in the sport of boxing right now. You guys are biased on ESPN, and I’m going to come on record and say this.
“I want to say congratulations to Teofimo for doing what he did [in beating Lomachenko]. A guy is not great because he won one fight. To become a legendary fighter, you must come out there and beat great fighters,” said Mayweather.
Floyd needs to make the fight between Teofimo and Davis very soon because Lopez is about to move up to 140. Tank, 5’5″, is too small to fight at light-welterweight, so he won’t be able to follow Teofimo up to 140.