By Craig Daly: Terence Crawford took a verbal shot at the popular Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis this week, saying that he hasn’t fought the “top elite fighters” in his weight class at lightweight during his career.
It’s common knowledge that Tank Davis’ promoters at Mayweather Promotions and PBC have been ultra-careful with him, matching him like he were fine china dinnerware and too fragile to be put in with even B-level opposition.
“Hats off to Tank; he’s a great, talented fighter. But he hasn’t faced the top elite fighters in his division,” said Terence Crawford to Joe Rogan about Gervonta Davis.
“We want to see Tank against somebody his size at the elite level. I believe he’ll do good. But we haven’t seen that yet.”
Is Gervonta Davis a money machine?
Despite not being matched against the top competition in any of the three weight classes the 28-year-old Gervonta competed in, he’s risen to be one of the most popular fighters in the United States.
At this point, it doesn’t look like Tank’s management will ever change the way they match him because he’s faithfully bringing in money without needing to be matched against the best.
Tank is like the goose that lays 24K golden eggs by the truckload. All his promoters need to do is continue to match him against fringe-level guys like Ryan Garcia, Isaac ‘Pitbull’ Cruz, and Rolando ‘Rolly’ Romero, and he’ll keep producing the golden eggs for them.
It’s pathetic, though, when you see an athlete or a team matched against strictly weak opposition to make them look better than they actually are.
Try to imagine an NFL team playing against only 8-8 teams and going to the Super Bowl each year to compete against subpar opposition. That’s what Tank Davis is doing, and his boxing fans are willing to pay to see him fight the lesser guys he faces.
It’s reasonable to assume that Tank Davis will never fight the best at 135 & 140, like Shakur Stevenson, Devin Haney, Frank Martin, Vasily Lomachenko & Teofimo Lopez.
There would be too much risk for Tank’s management to suddenly change how they’ve matched him his entire ten-year professional career.
Putting the soon-to-be 29-year-old Gervonta in with the elite-level opposition that Crawford and many others would like to see him fight could result in the flow of money being turned off from the spigot.
When you got a little money-maker and fool-proof formula to keep the dough rolling by matching him against soft opposition, you don’t want to mess that up by throwing him in against good fighters and seeing him get beaten repeatedly.