By Dan Ambrose: Floyd Mayweather Jr had his promoter’s hat on this week when he commented that he views his fighter Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis as the new “face of boxing” and not Canelo Alvarez.
Davis’ ratings don’t reflect him being the new ‘Face of boxing,’ but that could be due to the non-risk-taking fights that Mayweather Promotions has been putting him in with.
Davis has fought a faded Leo Santa Cruz at 130 and 38-year-old Yuriorkis Gamboa in the last two fights. Santa Cruz has no business fighting at 130, and Gamboa is way past his prime.
Unfortunately, the former two-division world champion Tank Davis (24-0, 23 KOs) has been carefully matched by Mayweather Promotions since he turned pro eight years ago in 2013.
Mayweather proclaims Tank as the Face of Boxing
“We know that Canelo is one of the best, but I see Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis as the ‘Face of Boxing,’” said Mayweather on Thursday.
“He’s young, he’s hungry, and if I’m not mistaken, he’s 24-0 with a 99% knockout ration. So I see Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis as the face of boxing,” said Mayweather.
While it’s nice that Mayweather sees Tank as the ‘Face of Boxing,’ the fans don’t agree. Davis isn’t even the most popular fighter in his own division at lightweight, let alone all Boxing.
Ryan Garcia and Teofimo Lopez are arguably more popular than Gervonta, and that’s not likely to change. Davis has missed his boat to become the ‘Face of Boxing’ with the godawful way that Mayweather Promotions has matched him his entire career.
The match-making that has been done for the 26-year-old Tank Davis has arguably stunted his career, preventing him from more popular.
Mayweather failed to match Tank against Vasily Lomachenko for the last four years, missing their opportunity. The light welterweight-sized lightweight Teofimo Lopez swooped in and beating the aging Lomachenko last October.
That should have been Gervonta that took advantage of the injured 33-year-old Lomahenko, but Mayweather didn’t want to take the risk.
Gervonta not facing the right opposition
At this point in Tank’s career, he should have already fought half of these fighters:
- Vasily Lomachenko
- Shakur Stevenson
- Ryan Garcia
- Teofimo Lopez
- Devin Haney
- Miguel Berchelt
- Oscar Valdez
- Joseph Diaz Jr
- Tevin Farmer
- Jamel Herring
- Gary Russell Jr
- Emanuel Navarrete
Tank Davis hasn’t fought any of those fighters shows how Mayweather Promotions have failed to make the fights that he needs to turn him into a star.
In another example of poor match-making, Gervonta will be moving up to 140 for his next fight to challenge WBA secondary light welterweight champion Marios Barrios (26-0, 17 KOs) on June 26th on Showtime pay-per-view.
Barrios is the WBA ‘regular’ 140-lb champion, holding the belt below the main strap held by Josh Taylor. That’s the guy that Tank Davis should be going after instead of Barrios, who viewed a paper champion by fans.