By Dan Ambrose: Canelo Alvarez reveals that his favorite fighter is surprisingly Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis rather than Floyd Mayweather Jr, who he seems to have patterned his game after.
The 27-year-old Tank Davis (27-0, 25 KOs) has captured world titles in three weight classes. Still, he’s taken a lot of criticism along the way because his handlers at Mayweather Promotions have cherry-picked belts for the Baltimore native to capture during his nine-year career.
Some boxing fans would argue that Canelo and Tank are birds of a feather, carefully managed by their promoters and steered away from talented opposition throughout their careers.
They conveniently steered Tank Davis around Vasyl Lomachenko, Teofimo Lopez, Shakur Stevenson, and Devin Haney. Instead of putting Tank in with those fighters, Mayweather Promotions have matched him against this bunch:
- Rolando ‘Rolly’ Romero
- Leo Santa Cruz
- Yuriorkis Gamboa
- Isaac ‘Pitbull’ Cruz
- Mario Barrios
- Ricardo Nunez
- Hugo Ruiz
- Francisco Fonseca
- Jose Cuellar
- Liam Walsh
- Jose Pedraza
- Marco Antonio Macias
“I think Tank is one of my favorites. He’s strong; he’s smart, and he’s very confident. He has a lot of talent,” said Canelo Alvarez to Fight Hub TV when asked who is his favorite fighter to watch.
Unfortunately, we don’t know how good Tank Davis is because he’s been matched so selectively by Mayweather Promotions, who have kept him in-house, matching him against PBC fighters, who in many cases were old guys on their last legs.
You can argue that the way that Tank Davis has been matched by his promoters is the downward spiral of the sport of boxing in which top fighters are carefully maneuvered by their clever management.
They keep them away from top talents and only match them against fighters with no chance of beating them, protecting them like a mother hen with their nestlings.
Tank Davis is a good fighter, but it’s hard not to believe that he would have four or five losses on his record now if he were matched against the best by Mayweather Promotions.
The careful match-making on Tank’s behalf has been a double-edged sword, however, because not only has it protected him from losing to fighters like Lomachenko, Haney, and Shakur, but it has stunted his career.
By Mayweather Promotions only matching Tank with in-house fights against Rolly Romero, Santa Cruz, Pitbull, and Gamboa, they’ve put an internal governor on how popular he can rise to in his career. So instead of Tank Davis being a massive star now, he’s a moderate-level one.
Conversely, Mayweather Promotion’s careful matching of Tank has likely saved him from being exposed many times over. It’s hard to know what would have happened if Tank had fought Lomachenko or Shakur already.
Given how poor Tank looked against Rolly, Santa Cruz, and Pitbull, it’s fair to say that Lomachenko and Stevenson’s have beaten him if Mayweather Promotions had chosen to match him against those fighters.
