By Dan Ambrose: Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis took a shot at Conor Benn on social media today in reaction to his comment about him. Tank said that the welterweight contender Benn needs to get off the drugs.
Both Tank and Benn are trying to clear their names over different things. The 26-year-old Benn (21-0, 14 KOs) tested twice for the banned PED clomifene, trying to prove his innocence.
Benn’s promoter Eddie Hearn has talked of contamination as an issue. However, given that the two positive tests for Benn came months apart, it makes it difficult to prove that the positive tests resulted from contamination.
In the meantime, Benn’s career is stalled out while he attempts to clear himself. If this thing continued to drag on into next year, Benn’s career could be crippled.
As for WBA ‘regular’ lightweight champion Tank Davis (27-0, 25 KOs), he’s trying to prove that he didn’t hit a woman he was arrested for allegedly hitting last Tuesday afternoon.
Gervonta Davis fires back at Conor Benn… pic.twitter.com/ldEHp61eKn
— Michael Benson (@MichaelBensonn) December 29, 2022
It would be interesting if Tank and Benn did one day fight because many boxing fans would be excited about that match-up. For the fight to take place, they would require meeting at a catchweight at welterweight.
If Benn could drain to 142 or 143, that would be a reasonable weight for him and Tank Davis to fight at. Of course, with Benn’s positive tests for clomifene and his possible drug ban that could soon follow, he might be out of boxing for a while.
If Benn is given a one to a two-year ban for his positive drug tests, the chances of him one-day fighting Gervonta will be slim & none because it’s going to take him a long time to try and come back from that kind of layoff.
What’s unclear is if Benn’s past success inside the ring were a product of his using PEDs. If it’s the performance-enhancing drugs that turned him into the monster puncher that we saw dispatch Chris Van Heerden and Chris Algieri, he could revert to the mediocre fighter that second-tier fighter Cedrick Peynaud arguably beat in 2017.
Benn was given a real thrashing by the little-known Peynaud and shockingly won the fight by a controversial six-round points decision after getting dropped twice.
If Benn goes from being the Superman that knocked everyone out to the seemingly kryptonite-weakened fighter that Peynaud was bouncing around the ring, his career will be over.