By Jim Calfa: Trainer Calvin Ford wants Gervonta Davis to face Isaac ‘Pitbull’ Cruz in a rematch, and he feels that’s the best option for his fighter Tank now that Devin Haney has moved up to light welterweight.
If Ford is the one that is picking out Tank Davis’ opposition, no wonder he’s fighting guys like Ryan Garcia, Rolly Romero, Mario Barrios, and Yuriorkis Gamboa.
Tank Davis (29-0, 27 KOs) reportedly wants to fight in a large stadium for his next contest, and that may prove to be difficult to fill unless he faces a more prominent name at lightweight.
Pitbull Cruz (25-2-1, 17 KOs) isn’t popular enough for Tank to fight in a stadium, and he’s someone that boxing fans will pay $70 to watch on Showtime PPV.
PBC obviously knows who the boxing public wants to see Gervonta fight, and if they choose Pitbull Cruz, that would suggest one of three things. A. Lack confidence in Tank B. View fans as marks C. Tank is insisting on Pitbull.
To fill a stadium, Gervonta needs these fighters:
- Frank Martin
- Shakur Stevenson
- Teofimo Lopez
- Devin Haney
- Vasily Lomachenko
- Terence Crawford
- Jaron Ennis
- William Zepeda
It’s unlikely that Gevonta would be willing to fight any of those guys because if he had any interest, he would have already fought some of them by now. The fact that Tank hasn’t fought any of them says a lot about him.
Tank beat Cruz by a twelve round unanimous decision in 2021, and the Mexican fighter has beaten anyone noteworthy since that loss to redeem himself.
Fighting Pitbull Cruz will affirm in the minds of many fans that Gervonta is a cherry-picker who is just looking to make easy money against fights that have no chance of beating him.
Pitbull looked bad in his last fight, beating Giovanni Cabrera by a 12 round unanimous decision.
“My thing is Pitbull,” said coach Calvin Ford to Fighthype about who he wants Gervonta Davis to fight next. “Devin is moving up. Shakur & Lomachenko will probably do it [fight for the vacant WBC lightweight title] next year.”
Instead of steering Tank Davis toward fighters like Pitbull, Ford should be telling him to fight the best at lightweight like Shakur, Lomachenko, and Frank Martin. Those are the guys that the fans want to see Tank fight, not Pitbull.
“Right now, until I see something in writing and they tell us the direction we’re going, that’s where we’re going at,” said Ford.
