Sure Floyd Mayweather, JR Vs Conor McGregor Is a Circus Act… But the Undercard Is Not Too Shabby!

By Donald “Braveheart” Stewart

I have just come back from tutoring a young 14 year old boy in English. He is a massive soccer fan and also a fan of most sports – the topic of conversation – you guessed it – Floyd Mayweather, JR.Vs Conor McGregor.

The worry?

He thought McGregor was a sure thing to win.

Now I happen to be employed to teach him English – literature and language – and not deal with any delusions he may have, but I found myself suggesting to him that he needs to buy the fight, and watch the undercard.

He looked at me with a puzzled expression as I went through names like Savannah Marshall and Badou Jack and Nathan Cleverley. What was I talking about?

It’s a clear message for boxing fans and I do think we are selling this short. Oh, not the main event but there are a couple of utterly cracking fights that will get immense coverage because they are part of Billy Big Brother’s Circus that is Mayweather, JR./McGregor and they are all support acts.

In amongst them is the massive fight between Gervonta Davis, 18-0, 17 KO’s, and Francisco Fonseca, 19-0-1, 13 KO’s.

Now no disrespect intended to Fonseca but since May the 20th this year, we in the UK, have become more aware of the Mayweather, JR. prodigy that is Davis. That was when he came across to the UK and stopped Liam Walsh, 21-1, 14 KO’s, to defend his IBF junior lightweight belt. This is the one he shall be defending again, at the weekend.

When Walsh and Davis entered the ring, it had already been a tough and brilliant year for British boxing. We kept pinning our hopes on the likes of Liam Walsh being able to show his pedigree and win a world title against this whipper snapper and over hyped Yankee that Money was touting as the next best thing. We had the arrogance to believe that some British fighters, despite many examples of them not being, were elite and world class and just had to show up to be given a belt.

Walsh went in and got taken out.

Davis at the tender age of just 22 years old, managed to beat one of our best prospects in the division – with apparent ease.

Davis had already announced himself to the British public in his previous fight when he won the IBF belt ironically on the Badou Jack/James DeGale undercard. This had been in January of 2017 when he had taken the title from Jose Pedraza.

Pedraza had his own pedigree with British fight fans as he had come to the UK and beaten Stephen Smith in a title defense. Pedraza lost his belt in his third defence to Davis and, we all, kind of, sat up and noticed that over here as he had been clinical in taking Smith apart.

For fans of the likes of the Smith brothers – and we are all massive fans of the 4 of them – this was a bit of a shock and maybe even a wake up call. How could this young and hungry fighter manage to do what Stephen couldn’t do and dethrone Pedraza?

When we heard that Walsh was going to be next in the list to take on Davis we thought this should be an interesting fight. This could give us that feel good factor again.
It didn’t.

Davis had knocked out Pedraza in the 7th round, he stopped Walsh in the 3rd.

Many thought that the fight had been stopped prematurely as the referees in the UK can be a bit cagey after what has happened recently to fighters like Mike Towell and Nick Blackwell but the reality was that it was just a matter of when and not if Davis stopped Smith.
We all saw that Gervonta Davis is the real deal.

OK he may have the hype of being a Mayweather, JR. boxer. He may have spoken overly warmly of his manager and mentor and talked of how he has studied Mayweather’s career very closely like a real sycophant.

But he has a crowd pleasing style that has led to 17 knockouts/stoppages in 18 fights when his mentor is more likely to take it to points and therefore we have a big difference in styles.
The only time he has been taken to points was a 6 rounder; he has never seen a 10th round.

We know very little about his opponent and to be honest, I think it matters very little who he faces on Saturday/Sunday. He shall enter that ring as someone few will know and leave it, this time, with his name ready to go into lights.

This weather boxing is certainly giving us plenty to talk about. Last weekend there was the superstar that should be Terence Crawford. This weekend we will, I am sure get, Gervonta Davis.

Next up, take a Kazakhstani and a Mexican and put them in a ring…

[si-contact-form form=’2′]