Gervonta is willing to fight anyone.
Gervonta Davis was going through the motions during an interview in May when a phrase caught his attention.
Davis is one of boxing’s young and rising stars in the lightweight division. When it was suggested that he didn’t have the biggest accomplishment among the group of impressive 135-pound youngsters that includes Teofimo Lopez, Ryan Garcia and Devin Haney, Davis stopped looking down, raised his head and interjected.
“I’m the biggest accomplishment of that group, they’re in their own little group. I’m on my own,” Davis said.
Despite the conviction in his voice, it’s hard for the undefeated Davis to make that statement when comparing his career to date to that of his peers, in terms of who he’s fought. If he truly wants to be unchallenged, he will have to start facing bigger challengers.
Take this weekend’s fight against Mario Barrios (Saturday, 9 p.m. ET, Showtime PPV), for example. Davis (24-0, 23 KOs) moves up to the junior welterweight division for the first time. Barrios (26-0, 17 KOs) holds a secondary belt in the 140-pound weight class.
Sure, it’s an interesting challenge. But even a knockout win against an opponent like Barrios won’t indicate where the 26-year-old fighter nicknamed “Tank” compares against Garcia, Haney and Lopez.
Lopez has the best win of the bunch. Last year, Lopez defeated pound-for-pound star Vasiliy Lomachenko to win three of the top four belts in the lightweight division. That victory started a trend in which the four princes of boxing, not the “Four Kings” that thrilled boxing in the 1980s, but an up-and-coming group anyway, would face tougher opponents.
Davis knocked out Leo Santa Cruz last Halloween. Garcia stopped Luke Campbell in January. Last month, Haney defeated Jorge Linares.
Barrios represents a step back for Davis, even if Davis is moving up 10 pounds in weight. But it lines up with a career trajectory that so far has been unpredictable.
The Baltimore, Maryland, native has never been a unified champion since winning his first title in 2017, over junior lightweight Jose Pedraza. Davis was stripped of the belt later in 2017 when he failed to make weight for a title defense against Francisco Fonseca.
Even Davis’ entertaining knockout over Santa Cruz illustrated the problem with his career strategy. The fight was for the WBA’s top belt at 130 and his “regular” 135-pound title, which perfectly illustrates the divisional limbo in which Davis exists. But it also reflects how Davis has operated since he began boxing at age seven.
His professional career is an extension of an approach in the amateur ranks: lining up the opponent in front of him and looking to be as dominant as possible. To some extent, it has worked. What Davis lacks in terms of a resume of stacked opponents, he supplements with star power. Among boxing’s four young princes, Davis, Garcia, Lopez and Haney, Davis, arguably, is the biggest draw in terms of money.
Of Showtime’s nine Showtime summer lineups, Davis is headlining for the network’s only PPV.
“He puts fans in the seats,” Mayweather Promotions CEO Leonard Ellerbe said at the Fight press conference in Atlanta in May. “People gravitate to the way he fights. This new generation of fans we have, they love him.”
It’s hard not to wonder how much higher that ceiling could be raised if he started facing, and then defeating, the biggest names of his generation. But while others yearn for greatness and take the fights that will be remembered years from now, Davis’ priorities seem to be focused elsewhere.
When asked if he feels he has to be an undisputed champion or a unified champion, Davis said he simply wants to be the best version of himself.
s the antithesis of what Josh Taylor and Jose Ramirez did in May, when they fought for the undisputed junior welterweight title. They each defeated other champions to set up the fight that Taylor won by unanimous decision to capture all four titles. Claressa Shields (twice), Katie Taylor and Jessica McCaskill have become undisputed women’s champions.
