By Chris Williams: Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis (24-0, 23 KOs) plans on staying at 140 after he takes on WBA ‘regular’ light welterweight champion Mario Barrios (26-0, 17 KOs) next month on June 26th.
If successful against the unbeaten Barrios, Davis reportedly wants to stay in the 140-lb division to challenge the winner of the May 22nd undisputed light welterweight clash between Jose Ramirez and Josh Taylor.
With Tank’s weight problems, it makes sense for him to stay at 140 because he tends to pack on the pounds when not fighting.
Yeah, Davis will be short for a light welterweight at 5’5 1/2″, but it’s still a better deal for him to stay in this weight class rather than boil back down to 130 and 135 and have no one to fight.
There’s a lot of money to be made for Tank if he can beat the Ramirez vs. Taylor winner to become the undisputed champion at 140. Davis will likely move back down at some point to 135, depending on the opportunities for big fights.
It might not be worth it for Tank to bother returning to the 135 or 130-lb divisions because there are few names to fight down there. Vasily Lomachenko is getting old, Ryan Garcia’s career is up in the air, and Teofimo Lopez moves up to 140 soon.
Devin Haney has no fan base, and there’s no one else besides them worth fighting. Shakur Stevenson is expected to move up to 135 soon, but his fighting style is boring, and he only has a small fan base like Haney.
In this case, Tank Davis would be the true undisputed champion and not the fake one that Teofimo Lopez is at 135. He’s been telling his boxing fans that he’s the undisputed champ at lightweight, but he only holds three of the four belts.
Davis is coming off a big sixth-round knockout victory over former three-division world champion Leo Santa Cruz last October on Showtime PPV.
For his part, the 26-year-old Barrios recently defeated Ryan Karl by a sixth-round knockout last October.
Davis vs. Barrios will be shown on Showtime pay-per-view on June 26th. There’s not too much competition that night from other fighters on other cards.
Erickson Lubin will take on former IBF/WBA junior middleweight champion Jeison Rosario in the co-feature bout in the undercard.
These are the major fighters that will run up against Tank’s title shot against Barrios on June 26th;
- Vasily Lomachenko vs. Masayoshi Nakatani – ESPN
- Julio Cesar Martinez vs. Maximino Flores