Gervonta Davis to start promoting fight with Mario Barrios

By Boxing News - 04/10/2021 - Comments

By Jeff Aronow: Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis posted a photo of himself and WBA secondary light welterweight champion Mario Barrios on Instagram on Friday, and he revealed that he’s going to begin “promoting the fight” next week.

Barrios is viewed as the weakest link among the three champions at 140 in the fans’ eyes. If Tank wanted to impress fans, he should have set up a fight with either IBF/WBA light welterweight champion Josh Taylor or WBC/WBO champ Jose Ramirez.

Those are the talented champions, which Tank would have A LOT of problems with if he moved up to 140 and took them on.

One could also make a strong argument that Tank would have his hands full if he were to take on highly ranked Regis Prograis or Jose Zepeda. Those guys have talent and would likely be viewed as the favorite against Tank.

Unfortunately, the fans on social media have reacted negatively to the former two-division world champion Tank (24-0, 23 KOs), saying he’ll start hyping his fight with Barrios (26-0, 17 KOs).

The fans aren’t intrigued at the thought of seeing Tank move up to 140 to face the ‘regular’ WBA champion, Barrios.

Image: Gervonta Davis to start promoting fight with Mario Barrios

The reason for that is obvious. Barrios is more of a ‘paper champion’ in the eyes of many boxing fans. In contrast, WBA Super World 140-lb champion Josh Taylor is viewed as the REAL champion with the World Boxing Association with that organization.

Tank looking like a cherry picker

Fans would respect the 26-year-old Tank Davis if he moved up to 140 to take on Josh Taylor, but they don’t think much of him fighting the little-known ‘regular’ [aka secondary] WBA 140lb champion Barrios.

On social media, fans are ripping into Tank, saying that it’s a Mayweather type of cherry-picking move in selecting a weak champion to try and become a three-division world champion the easy way.

Here are some of the comments from fans on social media about Tank after seeing his post on the Mario Barrios fight:

“Tank is a joke.”

“Gervonta Davis fighting paper champions.”

“This fool is fighting nobodies.”

“Tank is taking the route of his mentor [Floyd Mayweather Jr]. Duck all the competition.”

The backlash that Tank Davis is receiving from boxing fans on social media goes and on, with fans letting him know how unhappy they are with his move to fight the weakest link among the champions at 140.

Tank is coming off a sixth-round knockout win over Leo Santa Cruz last October in a fight that fans saw as a cherry-pick for Davis.

Santa Cruz has looked poor since moving up to 130 to win the WBA super featherweight belt against a fighter [Miguel Flores] that had lost 2 out of his last 4 fights coming into the match with Leo.

If Tank wanted to impress fans, he would have taken on Oscar Valdez or Shakur Stevenson at 130 rather than Santa Cruz, who is clearly on the downside of his career.

Tank has fought just once at 135, beating an old 38-yer-old Yuriorkis Gamboa by a 12th round knockout in 2019 to capture the WBA ‘regular’ lightweight title.

Gamboa fought with a torn Achilles from the second round on, limping around the ring, yet he could still make it to the 12th. The title that Tank won against Gamboa was the secondary WBA belt. Teofimo Lopez has the main one or a real one. Tank’s WBA belt is more of a trinket strap.

Fans have wanted to see Tank take on the best at 135 like Teofimo Lopez, Devin Haney, Ryan Garcia, or even Jorge Linares. Instead, Tank chose to fight Santa Cruz at 130, and now he’s moving up to 140 to fight secondary WBA champion, Barrios.

 

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A post shared by Gervonta Davis (@gervontaa)