by Keith Idec
NEW YORK – Gervonta Davis knows how Vasiliy Lomachenko feels.
Lomachenko turned down a deal for a lightweight title unification fight versus Davis over the summer because the three-division champion contemplated retirement. The 36-year-old Lomachenko remains an active boxer, but the Ukrainian southpaw hasn’t decided whether he’ll return to the ring in 2025.
Davis revealed during a press conference Tuesday in Brooklyn that he, too, is considering walking away from the sport. The 30-year-old Baltimore native rarely has spoken about retirement from boxing, which was why his statement surprised many of those that attended the event to promote the American superstar’s pay-per-view main event versus Lamont Roach at Barclays Center.
“After next year, I’m out of it,” Davis told Premier Boxing Champions’ Miguel Flores, who moderated the press conference. “Out of the sport.”
Davis (30-0, 28 KOs) also stated that he intends to fight three times in 2025 before he calls it a career. Beyond boxing Roach (25-1-1, 10 KOs), Davis mentioned Ryan Garcia, whom he knocked out in the seventh round of their April 2023 bout, and former fully unified lightweight champ Devin Haney as potential opponents.
The left-handed Davis didn’t mention Lomachenko as an option for his second fight of next year, presumably because he doesn’t think Lomachenko (18-3, 12 KOs) will box again.
“I was supposed to [have] fought Lomachenko, right?,” Davis said. “And um, like how he said he was retired and things like that. I feel as though like we been in this so long that we all getting tired of it. Like we been beatin’ our bodies up so long. But it be important to be situations like this now, like [Roach] talkin’, that sparks the plug again.”
Davis, who made his pro debut in February 2013, has given some serious thought to what he would do if he stops boxing.
“I probably [would] be more like building my real estate portfolio,” Davis said, “and I guess tryna separate myself from the limelight, you know?”
The WBA lightweight champion opened as a 16-1 favourite to defeat Roach, who has moved up from the junior lightweight limit of 130 pounds to challenge Davis for his WBA 135-pound crown. Davis hasn’t competed three times in a calendar year since 2019, when he knocked out Hugo Ruiz, Ricardo Nunez and Yuriorkis Gamboa.
