NEW YORK – Gervonta Davis’ obliviousness was audacious, annoying, amusing and admirable all at the same time the afternoon of December 3.
Davis arrived at Barclays Center in Brooklyn almost 4½ hours after his press conference was originally scheduled to begin. The public relations team for Al Haymon’s Premier Boxing Champions alerted the media twice that morning of postponements – first from 1 p.m. ET to 3 p.m. and then from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m.
One of boxing’s biggest stars sat down at the dais at 5:28 p.m., without any indication of regret. In fact, the Baltimore native appeared pleased that he had disrupted the days of everyone involved in the event by not even boarding his private plane in Miami until approximately 1:30 p.m., half-an-hour after the initial start time for a press conference to officially announce his lightweight title fight against Lamont Roach on March 1 at Barclays Center.
Multiple sources informed Boxing News that Davis encouraged his handlers to schedule the press conference for later in the afternoon. A notorious night owl, Davis knew he wouldn’t make it from Miami in time for a 1 p.m. event because he tends to stay up all night.
The electrifying knockout artist wasn’t truly training at that point, either, because his fight with Roach was still about three months away.
Once PBC moderator Miguel Flores began the press conference, Davis didn’t even acknowledge that he was laughably late, let alone apologize. The way the disruptive Davis views the boxing world, people pack arenas throughout the United States to see him violently knock out opponents.
The show won’t start, Davis seemingly stated, until its superstar is good and ready. Some involved in the promotion speculated that the unbeaten WBA lightweight champion came whenever he felt like it because he wanted to fight Roach on December 14 at Toyota Center in Houston.
Once his bout was pushed back 2½ months, which meant Davis will have boxed only once in 2024, this was his passive-aggressive way of flexing his promotional muscle and making it clear that the most bankable American boxer in the sport wasn’t happy.
Davis’ disenchantment with the boxing business in general, and what he perceives as a lack of deserving competition, prompted him to talk retirement less than a month after his 30th birthday. The powerful southpaw stated that he will box three times in 2025, then call it a career.
“This sh*t is trash, garbage,” Davis told a small group of reporters regarding the lightweight landscape.
The diminutive Davis (30-0, 28 KOs) wants a rematch with Ryan Garcia, who is suspended in the U.S. until April 21 for failing a performance-enhancing drug test administered after his 12-round, majority-decision upset of rival Devin Haney eight months ago. A second fight against Garcia (24-1, 20 KOs, 1 NC), of Victorville, California, nonetheless remains the most marketable match for Davis, despite that he knocked out Garcia with a body shot in the seventh round of their April 2023 fight at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Davis, based on his retirement math, has given up hope that IBF lightweight champ Vasiliy Lomachenko will change his mind and agree to fight him. Representatives for Davis and Ukraine’s Lomachenko (18-3, 12 KOs) essentially came to an agreement for them to finally fight November 2 at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.
Lomachenko ultimately determined he didn’t want to box a second time in 2024. The two-time Olympic gold medalist and three-weight world champion isn’t sure he wants to fight anyone in 2025, forget the dangerous Davis.
A fight with Haney, of Henderson, Nevada, interests Davis as well, even though there is more weight between them now than ever. As the “A” side of their pay-per-view event, Davis made Garcia squeeze back down to a catch weight of 136 pounds, a stipulation to which Haney is very unlikely to agree.
Haney has name recognition, however, is a former undisputed lightweight champion and is officially unbeaten because Garcia’s suspension led to his victory over Haney being changed to a no-contest.
“I’m talking about [retiring] after this year,” Davis said. “Them fights could still happen. But after this year [2025], I’m done.”
Davis definitely didn’t seem interested in boxing Shakur Stevenson, the most obvious omission from his hit list. Stevenson (22-0, 10 KOs) is scheduled to defend his WBC lightweight championship against another unbeaten American, Floyd Schofield (18-0, 12 KOs), of Austin, Texas, on the Artur Beterbiev-Dmitry Bivol undercard February 22 at Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Stevenson still wants to challenge Davis more than he wants to face any other opponent, but Davis doesn’t see the point in trying to track down a defensively driven tactician who would need to compete carefully to have any shot at out-pointing Davis.
“For what? Like who have Shakur [fought]?,” Davis asked a group of reporters. “What have Shakur done? What have he done in the sport? He haven’t done nothing. The young one is looking more better than him. Keyshawn. Keyshawn [Davis] looking way more better than [Stevenson]. Y’all keep screaming [Stevenson’s name]. He haven’t done nothing. Keyshawn haven’t even done nothing. What the f*ck is y’all keep saying his name for?”
The reasonable retort, of course, would be what has Roach done to earn a pay-per-view opportunity to dethrone Davis?
Roach (25-1-1, 10 KOs), who was one of Gervonta Davis’ rivals when they were amateurs, is a good boxer who owns the WBA super featherweight title. Before he beat one of Gervonta Davis’ conquests, Dominican southpaw Hector Luis Garcia, to win his WBA belt, he lost a unanimous decision to Jamel Herring five years ago at Chukchansi Park in Fresno, California.
Stevenson dominated Cincinnati’s Herring (24-5, 12 KOs) on his way to a 10th-round, technical-knockout win in their WBO 130-pound title fight in October 2021 at State Farm Arena in Atlanta. The left-handed Stevenson has won world titles in three divisions altogether, yet he has alienated boxing fans by boxing very cautiously in each of his last two wins – 12-round, unanimous-decision defeats of Dominican southpaw Edwin De Los Santos (16-2, 14 KOs) and Germany’s Artem Harutyunyan (12-2, 7 KOs).
Those two fan-unfriendly fights for Stevenson are among the reasons Gervonta Davis responded incredulously when asked if he were worried about critics contending he is “scared” to face the 2016 Olympic silver medalist from Newark, New Jersey.
“Afraid of what?,” an irritated Davis asked. “Afraid of what? Us fighters, if we afraid of someone, it gotta be somebody hittin’ us and hurtin’ us. Like, he don’t throw – he don’t have no offense. Everything is defense. Defense only win in basketball and football. That sh*t don’t win in boxing.”
His fight with Roach, of Upper Marlboro, Maryland, will undoubtedly test Davis’ drawing power on Prime Video’s Amazon-backed pay-per-view platform. Almost 6,000 tickets were sold to the March 1 event they will headline within an hour of going on sale December 3, but Davis opened as a consensus 16-1 favorite, which isn’t exactly enticing to cost-conscious consumers.
There are also questions about Davis’ corner as he prepares to begin training camp for his fight with Roach. Calvin Ford, Davis’ longtime trainer and father figure, might not work with him for this fight, though the reasons for his possible departure are unknown.
Boxing News has learned that Barry Hunter, best known for his work with Washington-based twins Anthony and Lamont Peterson, might become Davis’ chief second, at least temporarily.
Whoever works his corner, Davis realizes that this fight won’t nearly as easy as the official odds suggest. The former WBA super featherweight champ barely beat Roach on points in each of their two amateur matches, both of which occurred in 2011, and they sparred against one another numerous times before they turned pro.
Davis declared Roach a tougher test than American southpaw Frank Martin (18-1, 12 KOs), the Detroit native Davis knocked out in the eighth round of his last fight, June 15 at MGM Grand Garden Arena. Still, Davis predicted he will win by ninth-round knockout, even though Roach hasn’t lost an amateur or professional fight inside the distance.
“Like [Davis] said, this a hell of a opportunity,” Roach said. “You know what I’m saying? So, we gonna conquer it. Everybody know what I’m coming here to do. If you don’t, then sh*t, you gonna be in for a surprise. I know he won’t be surprised. I think he actually took this fight for the naysayers and all this and all that. People were talkin’ sh*t about the fight.
“I think he actually took the fight because he know that I’m a dog and he wanna prove his skills against a dog. So, I’mma show y’all what happens when two dogs get in the ring together. And I’m gonna be the one – obviously, I’mma be the one coming out victorious. And, you know, I’mma put on a hell of a show for y’all.”
If Davis defeats Roach, Garcia again and then Haney in 2025, he has a preliminary plan for what he’ll do in an early retirement.
“I probably be more like building my real estate portfolio,” Davis said, “and I guess tryna separate myself from the limelight, you know?”
