Gervonta Davis is EXPOSED!

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By Randy “The Commish” Gordon

I was wrong about Gervonta Davis.

On Saturday night, December 28, I found out all I needed to know about the undefeated former Jr. Lightweight Champion from Baltimore. I thought he was much better than he really is.

A friend of mine from Baltimore, who knows Davis from being in the same gym as him in Baltimore, sold me on Davis years ago.

“This ‘Tank’ punches like a middleweight,” my friend told me as far back as 2013, when Davis had first turned professional that Winter, at the age of 18, and at 125 pounds.

“He’ll win titles in at least four weight divisions, maybe five, before he’s through,” said my friend.

“From featherweight, where he is now, right up through welterweight.”

Yes, at 18, Gervonta Davis looked that good.

In his first year as a pro, he had blasted his way to a 5-0 record, knocking out each opponent, two in the first round, two in the second and another in the fourth. But, he had already climbed out of the featherweight division and entered his second year as a pro as a junior lightweight.

Four more victories followed before his 20th birthday, three by knockout. The one opponent who made it to the final bell in their six-round bout—German Meraz—took a drubbing and lost every second of the fight, being floored twice in the bout and staggered on several more occasions.

Along the way, Davis had signed with Mayweather Promotions. As a $$$Mayweather fighter, he had the support of boxing’s biggest star and all that goes with it. That included the lights and cameras of Showtime Boxing and a close personal friendship with boxing’s bad boy, Adrien “The Problem” Broner.

The victories kept coming. He went 5-0 in 2015. By the time 2016 started. He was 14-0 with 13 knockouts. His pristine record, along with his association with Mayweather Promotions quickly got him into the ratings and elevated to the top. Two more knockout victories in 2016 got him a shot at undefeated IBF Jr. Lightweight Champion Jose Pedraza.at the Barclays Center, underneath the James DeGale-Badou Jack battle for the unified Super Middleweight Title.

While the DeGale-Jack bout turned into a spirited, action-packed Majority Draw, it was Davis’ one-sided beatdown and title-winning seventh-round stoppage of Pedraza which left everyone in awe.

Davis was certainly impressive in victory over Pedraza. It made me wonder if, indeed, he was every bit as good as my friends from Baltimore and Mayweather Promotions made him out to be. A closer inspection of his record gave me the answer to my question.

Going into the Pedraza fight, Davis was 16-0. Of those bouts, only seven opponents had winning records. Of them, three were 47-31-1, 40-18-4 and another 28-18.

Still, he had beaten an undefeated world champion to win his first world title, and did so in overwhelming, convincing, dominating fashion.

In his first defense—four months later—Davis crushed another unbeaten fighter. This one was Liam Walsh, who was 21-0. It was over for the Brit in round three. However, Walsh’s first eight opponents all had losing records, some of them dreadful (22-69, 1-14, 4-12, 4-41, 4-40).

So, Davis was fattening up his record on less-than-stellar opposition who had impressive records. It is a clever matchmaking and promotional strategy. Nowhere was there talk of him facing Miguel Berchelt, the WBC Super Featherweight Champ, or Jezzrel Corrales, the WBA Super Featherweight Champ.

Just three months after beating Walsh, Davis was on the Supercard which featured the main event of Floyd Mayweather, JR. against Conor McGregor. The man across the ring would be Davis’ third straight undefeated opponent, Francisco Fonseca, who took a highly-inflated 19-0-1 record in against the IBF champion. Incredibly, 14 of his 20 opponents had .500 or losing records. In fact, Fonseca hadn’t fought a fighter with a winning record until his 13th fight!

For this title bout, Davis failed to make weight. He was stripped of the title. A win by him would vacate the crown, while a loss would make Fonseca the champ. Davis shrugged his shoulders, paid a fine to Fonseca and the fight went on. An overweight Davis stopped Fonseca in the eighth round and the crown was vacated.

Afterwards, Davis said he’d be more comfortable moving up to lightweight, and that’s what fans could now expect. However, when Vasilyl Lomachenko’s name came up as a possible opponent, Team Gervonta Davis basically said, “No so fast. We’ll get there, eventually.”

It would be almost eight months before Davis was back in the ring again. But when he came back, on April 21, 2018, he did so at 129 pounds. The fight would be for the WBA Super World Super Featherweight Title. His opponent: Argentina’s Jesus Cuellar.

This would be Cuellar’s first fight in 16 months. His last one was a 12-round, split decision loss to Abner Mares for the WBA Featherweight Title in December, 2016.

Cuellar was dropped once in the second round and twice more in the third before referee Benjy Esteves waved it over at 2:45 of round three.

A 10-month layoff followed, plus some run-ins with the law. But it was nothing that Mayweather Promotions and Showtime couldn’t control, and Davis was back defending his title on February 9, 2019. This time it was 39-4 Hugo Ruiz, a power-punching, free-swinger from Mexico. With Ruiz, an astounding 21 of his 43 opponents had .500 or losing records.

Davis blew him away in the first round.

Five months later came Davis’ final appearance at 130 pounds. It came against Panamanian Ricardo Nunez, who came into the fight with a record of 21-2 and 19 knockouts. Not surprisingly, nine of his victories had come at the expense of fighters with losing or .500 records. Davis ended the fight in the third round.

Shortly after the bout came talk of Davis moving up to the lightweight division. Then came the announcement he would be facing Yuriorkis “Yuri” Gamboa on December 28 on Showtime.

Gamboa was once an elite fighter. He won the gold medal as a flyweight for Cuba in the 2004 Olympics in Athens. At the time, he was 22. When he turned pro in 2007, he did so as a featherweight, weighing in at 125¾ pounds for his debut.

On October 10, 2009, he won the WBA Featherweight Title with a fourth-round stoppage of Whyber Garcia in Madison Square Garden. It was just Gamboa’s 16th pro fight.

Several impressive victories followed. Included were wins over previously-undefeated Jonathan Barros, Orlando Salido, Jorge Solis, Daniel Ponce de Leon, Michael Farenas and Darleys Perez.

The victory over Farenas was for the interim WBA Super Featherweight Title and his succeeding fight, against the 28-0 Perez, was for the interim WBA Lightweight Title.

While still undefeated and picking up titles in multiple weight classes, Gamboa was struggling to stay active. His fight against DeLeon was in 2011. His next bout, against Farenas, was in 2012. His following bout, against Perez, was in 2013. It would be one year before he would fight again.

It would become the first loss on his record, the first of two in his next eight bout. His opponent on this warm night in June 2014 would be against WBO Lightweight Champion Terence Crawford. Gamboa was dropped four times before being stopped in the ninth round.

Battling contractual issues, Gamboa fought just three more times over the next four years.
He looked uninspired when he won a 10-round decision against veteran Rene Alvarado in March 2017, climbing off the canvas in the final round to do so. He looked worse two months later, when journeyman Robinson Castellanos dropped him twice befores topping Gamboa in the seventh round. In his four subsequent bouts—all wins– Gamboa looked slow and sluggish. He was hittable. But he was still Yuri Gamboa, former Olympic champion and multi-divisional world champion. He was 30-2. He was still a sellable name.

So, Mayweather Promotions and Showtime sold him as a viable opponent for Gervonta Davis. The vacant WBA Lightweight Title would be on the line for Davis’ “Moving Up” party. Listening to the promoters, this was going to be a lightweight title classic. They took it to a new market—Atlanta, Georgia—and did a terrific job at building the fight into something it really wasn’t, or shouldn’t have been.

In reality, 25-year-old Gervonta Davis should have had an easy—or much easier—time with the 38-year-old Gamboa, whose best boxing days were in his rear-view mirror. On that night in Atlanta, Gamboa, overachieved and Davis underachieved. Or did they?

Gamboa, dropped in the second round, hobbled around with an apparent injury to his right Achilles’ tendon. He was dropped again in round eight. Yet, he continually fought back gallantly and valiantly. Davis did his best, round after round to put Gamboa away, but often was stopped in his tracks by a barrage of punches from the brave Cuban.

Davis finally got the job done in the 12th round. After dropping Gamboa with a little over one minute gone in the final round, referee Jack Reiss waved the fight over, giving Davis a 12th round TKO and his 23rd victory without defeat.

My SiriusXM partner, Gerry Cooney, lived up to his nickname—“Gentleman” Gerry—and said “Gervonta Davis had an off night, but still won.”

I didn’t see it like that.

I believed this should have been a one-sided fight in favor of Davis. I didn’t see it as an “off night.” I believe Davis is exactly the fighter we saw against Yuriorkis Gamboa.

I was wrong about Gervonta Davis.

I thought he was far better than he really is.

Randy “The Commish” Gordon is the Author of the hit book, “Glove Affair”. Order your copy by clicking HERE.

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