By Adam Baskin: Gervonta Davis vs. Shakur Stevenson is arguably the best fight that can be made at lightweight now that Ryan Garcia has been disposed of, courtesy of Tank’s impressive seventh round knockout victory last Saturday night at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Unlike Ryan Garcia, Shakur has talent and a true boxing pedigree. Tank Davis would be jumping into the deep end by facing Stevenson, and it would be a massive leap up in competition for the Baltimore native.
For once in Tank Davis’ nine-year professional career, he’d face a live dog in Stevenson, someone ready to rip him apart.
Although undisputed lightweight champion Devin Haney vs. Tank is an exciting fight on paper, it’s probably not going to happen. Haney looked like a zombie in the movie, ‘Dawn of the Dead,‘ making weight for his rematch with George Kambosos Jr last October, and his title defense against Vasily Lomachenko on May 20th will probably be his final at 135 before he moves up to 140.
The more realistic fight for Tank Davis is against Shakur Stevenson (20-0, 10 KOs), as he just moved up to lightweight from 130, and he’s not likely to outgrow the division for many years to come.
Unfortunately, what could get in the way of Gervonta fighting Shakur is Tank’s management. Top Rank, the promoters for Stevenson, would pull the trigger on a fight against Tank in a second if they had the opportunity, but the feelings aren’t mutual.
Tank’s management knows the pitfalls of them putting him in with Stevenson, so they’re unlikely to make that fight because he’s making tons of money with beatable social guys like Ryan Garcia and Rolando ‘Rolly’ Romero.
They won’t want to spoil the gravy train by putting Gervonta in with a real fighter and watching him get humiliated & exposed by Shakur.
If Tank’s management at PBC were willing to throw him to the wolves by letting him fight Stevenson, it’s by far the biggest & the best fight at 135 by a mile.
Is Tank Davis vs. Shakur Stevenson best fight at 135?
“The best fight at lightweight, moving forward, is Gervonta against Shakur Stevenson,” said Chris Mannix to The Volume. “Look, Devin Haney is going to fight Lomachenko, but if Haney wins, I do not believe he’s staying at 135.
“If you want to talk about being dried out. Devin Haney struggles mightily to get down to that weight [lightweight]. I think he’s going to take his titles and say goodbye to them and move up to 140 pounds, and maybe they [Haney & Tank] can meet somewhere down the line.
“For Tank Davis and Shakur Stevenson, you’re talking about two guys that are probably going to be at 135 for the foreseeable future. For at least the next couple of years, especially when it comes to Shakur Stevenson.
“I don’t want to get into, ‘Can we see that fight?’ There are a lot of obstacles that have to be overcome to get there, but you’ve shared the ring with Shakur Stevenson and have been a stablemate of him in the past.
“What’s your early thought of Shakur vs. Gervante if they could put that fight together?” said Mannix.
Stevenson hard to hit
“Shakur and Gervonta have great ring IQ, but I feel Shakur is a defensive-minded fighter first, even though in his last fight, he showed a lot of offense in that match-up,” said former WBO super featherweight champion Jamel Herring.
“Shakur is hard to hit, to begin with. It’s hard to land anything on him because he’s so technically skilled in that area.
“With someone like Gervonta Davis, you see, he can put you down with one shot. So it’s a really interesting match-up because you got a very big puncher in Gervonta Davis, but you’ve got a very skilled defensive fighter. Not only that.
“Shakur is really good with timing. He’s great with timing, and he knows where he’s at in the ring. Not to mention, they’re both southpaws, so that’s an interesting clash because you rarely see southpaws against southpaws.
“Even in my own career. That’s why I had so many issues with southpaws because I rarely came across another southpaw unless it was sparring with some guys like Terence Crawford, but it’s just rare in a real fight to see a southpaw against a southpaw. It’s just a very intriguing match-up,” said Herring.
Stevenson wouldn’t fall into Tank’s traps
“That’s the pound-for-pound match-up. You’ve got Crawford against Spence, but Gervonta against Shakur right behind them,” said Mannix. “I agree with you. Shakur is a masterful boxer. He would never fall into the sort of traps that Ryan fell into. He wouldn’t allow himself to be encountered in the same way.
“At the same time, Gervonta is a brilliant boxer in the ring. His boxing IQ is right up there with anyone in boxing today. He’s well-coached with Calvin Ford. He has great game plans and he executes them flawlessly.
“I just hope that fight can get made sometime in the next year. If the titles fracture after Devin Haney-Lomachenko, I would expect Shakur to fight for the WBC belt. Perhaps if George Kambosos gets his hands on the IBF belt, maybe they do Shakur-Kambosos, and maybe next year we could be talking about Gervonta against Shakur.
Gervonta with limited options for PBC in-house fights
“He’s going to run into the same kind of problems with internal fights. There aren’t a lot of great fights for him in that PBC universe at the moment,” said Mannix about Tank Davis. “So that’s the next big one that we’re going to be lobbying for.
“With Ryan Garcia, I’m not going to bury the guy after a loss because this is what we want guys to do. We want them to take dangerous fights and put their zero on the line. If they lose it, big deal.
“We say it all the time. Generations have passed where fighters have losses, whether it’s Oscar, Hopkins, Pacquiao, or Sugar Ray Leonard. In every era, the great fighters have multiple losses on their resumes.”
https://youtu.be/FPRHdz4DEiE?t=1028