By Eóin Kennedy
Gervonta “Tank’ Davis has been one of boxing’s biggest enigmas for a while now. The Baltimore fighter has a massive fan base within boxing and fills arena on both coasts of the United States, and while the legitimacy of his pay-per-view numbers tend to be debated after fights, there’s no doubt that when he fights, the boxing world stops still to watch. Going by the metrics of views and followers, Davis does well across various social media platforms relative to other fighters. Outside of the realms of the boxing universe, Davis isn’t a massive mainstream star. Depending on which of your generic sports fan friends you ask about him, they may or may not know who he is. He’s that kind of boxer, famous but not ubiquitous, like Tyson Fury, Canelo Alvarez or Anthony Joshua. That’s okay, there aren’t many transcendent superstars in boxing and being a mega-star within the sport is good enough from a fame perspective.
What many feel isn’t good enough when it comes to Tank Davis is his resume. It’s a divisive topic in boxing but a large number of fans question how Davis can appear on so many top ten pound-for pound lists when its difficult to even pin down what the signature win of his career is, at twenty-nine years old. The win over Leo Santa Cruz was a highlight reel knockout that doesn’t get boring to watch, but the Mexican was fighting considerably above his natural weight class. Hector Garcia was a solid victory but again he was operating in a division higher than usual and isn’t a name that will really jump off the page on a resume belonging to a fighter of Davis’s stature. Ryan Garcia in retrospect was severely handicapped in his bout with Tank due to the rehydration clause imposed, and Rolly Romero has shown himself to be an average fighter since he was also knocked out at the hands of Davis, meaning the value of those triumphs have also decreased with the passing of time. In fairness to Davis, his victory over Mario Barrios is aging like a fine wine and may be the best win of his career. Most commentators will still probably point to Davis’s win over Yuriorkis Gamboa as his greatest feat so far, and although Gamboa was still a game warrior at the time of their fight, it can’t be denied that he was coming into the backend of his career.
Regardless of whether Tank’s career best victory to date has been over Barrios or Gamboa, the fact remains that neither name is big enough for a fighter of his supposed level. If the pound-for-pound proclamations and declarations that Davis is the face of boxing are to be believed, the WBA lightweight champion needs a more significant signature name on his list of vanquished foes. On June 12th Davis will defend his title in a Las Vegas main event against Frank ‘The Ghost’ Martin and that is an excellent fight. But still, even a victory over the Texan, Martin, will be met with the reaction that he wasn’t experienced enough to deal with Davis, and that it’s not on par with his peers like Teofimo Lopez and Devin Haney’s best victories. Tank will be made work hard to beat Martin, and while he is a live dog, I do expect Martin to ultimately get figured out and lose. Should that happen then Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis will finally have reached the stage of his career that he can no longer avoid, and that is putting it all on the line by accepting a genuine 50-50 fight against another great champion, in order to secure a signature win. The Baltimore boxer has two glorious options before him, Newark’s Shakur Stevenson and Ukrainian icon Vasiliy Lomachenko. Each man holds one iteration of the lightweight world title so in an age when unifications and undisputed fights are happening on a regular basis, there’s no excuse not to mix it up. Promotional politics used to be a major stumbling block but even they are disappearing since the arrival of Turki Alalshikh onto the scene.
Stevenson will likely be moving up to the light-welterweight division soon and Lomachenko is approaching retirement so there is a sense of urgency to making these fights happen for fear of losing them forever. The question is, are Davis and his team finally ready to truly step up to the ultimate elite level in boxing, because many feel that he still hasn’t been there. Whether he has or has not fought elite competition on a completely fair basis is debatable, but the fact that Stevenson and Lomachenko are the best fights out there for him is not. That’s fact. Davis needs to take care of business against Frank Martin on June 12th, and that’s no easy ask, but he’ll be confident. If he does come through, Tank must then fight Stevenson or Lomachenko next. The time is now.
