AS Lamont Roach Jr pieces together his final few days of preparation, there is one person – other than Gervonta Davis, of course – who remains firmly in his mind.
The WBA super-featherweight titlist will enter the biggest fight of his career this Saturday, headlining a Prime Video pay-per-view card at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
His formidable assignment just so happens to be against WBA lightweight champion Davis, 30-0 (28 KOs), a pound-for-pound star who possesses both frightening knockout power and elite ring IQ.
Acknowledging the magnitude of his first title fight at 135lbs, Roach, 25-1-1 (10 KOs), has refused to leave any stone unturned, locking himself away from his family in a long, arduous training camp.
In doing so, he has been compelled to reduce the time that would otherwise be spent with his three-year-old son, ultimately believing that the sacrifice will see him pull off a sizable upset against Davis.
“That’s the hardest s*** I’ve ever been through,” Roach told Boxing News. “I’m with my son every day that I can be. I take him to school, pick him up, and bring him to the gym sometimes – if he’s with me, he’s with me.
“If he could’ve come out here [to the gym], I definitely would’ve had him. This is probably the biggest sacrifice that I’ve made in boxing.”
Ahead of his showdown with Davis, Roach has resumed his usual training set-up at the Washington, D.C.-based NoXcuse Boxing Club, diligently preparing under the tutelage of his father.
But before joining forces with Lamont Roach Sr, it was the American’s cousin, Bernard ‘Boogaloo’ Roach, who trained him up until 2017, back when he tragically died from a heart attack.
Since then, Roach Sr has remained in his son’s corner, with the experience he gained from ‘Boogaloo’ – who previously coached DeMarcus Corley to his first world title – proving to be invaluable.
“[My cousin] moulded my dad into the coach that he is now,” Roach said. “In 2017, my dad had to take over as not just my head coach but the manager and trainer for two facilities with 50 kids.
“The fighter-trainer relationship has been perfect. It’s a big props to my dad because he knows how to perfectly separate being a dad from being a coach, and I appreciate him so much for that.
“You see a lot of father-son duos [in boxing] that have a little tension, or they have some issues or problems, but my dad has created the perfect model to being a coach and a dad.”
At one stage, it appeared that Roach’s upcoming clash was in jeopardy, with Davis claiming on social media towards the end of last year that their fight had been cancelled.
It was around that time, too, when ‘Tank’ began to tease an early retirement, insisting that he intends to exit the sport by the end of this year.
But still, Roach nonetheless remained focused on the task at hand, blocking out all the noise from the confines of his gym.
“You’ve got to know who you’re dealing with,” he said. “[Davis] can be a wild card sometimes, whether it’s his antics or whatever. He could have just been in one of his moods.
“We were never worried about the fight being off. We stayed in the gym and kept training, knowing that it was just a matter of time before all the antics would stop.
“I think about [Davis announcing his retirement] a little bit but, then again, it could just be talk.
“He might actually be uninterested in boxing, honestly, but I’m not preparing for a Gervonta Davis that’s uninteresting in boxing. If he is, in fact, one foot out and one foot in, then that’s a huge mistake.”
While firmly believing that he will become a two-division titlist this weekend, Roach equally understands that his boxing achievements thus far are well worth celebrating.
A split decision victory over Hector Luis Garcia saw him claim the WBA strap in 2023, and, after turning his life around, ‘The Reaper’ is now widely viewed as a figure of inspiration to those growing up in similar surroundings to where he came from.
“I look at [becoming world champion] as a success story,” Roach said. “It’s hard to make it out of my neighbourhood [in Washington, D.C.] – there’re a lot of ‘crab in a barrel’ type people.
“I learned a lot about life and in a short amount of time; the city forces a lot of kids to grow up fast.
“So now, I try to preach to the kids coming behind me that if I can do it, they can do it too.”
