Boxing’s fastest rising star, Gervonta Davis (22-0-0), will be back in action for the holidays. Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s brightest pupil will make his debut at 135 pounds when he faces former Olympic gold medalist Yuriorkis Gamboa (30-2-0) on Dec. 28 for the WBA’s vacant ‘regular’ lightweight world title.
“Tank” Davis, 24, has stepped out from his now-retired mentor’s shadow with dominating wins punctuated with his howitzer-like punching power. In his last fight, he obliterated Panamanian Ricardo Nunez in two rounds.
Still, aside from his early 2017 victory over Jose Pedraza, the Baltimore star has been relatively untested. That will change with Gamboa, 37, who is fighting to continue a once-promising career. The Cuban was once regarded as the “Tank” of his day, a can’t miss fighter with word titles in his future, but his stock has plummetted after getting bullied by Terence Crawford in a stoppage loss back in 2014.
While Gamboa’s defeat to one of boxing’s elite was excusable, four fights later, he was “No Mas’d” by journeyman Robinson Castellanos after a pair of scything right hands that knocked the typically sturdy Gamboa down. A victory over a name like Davis would missile-launch the former top prospect into 135-pound royalty.
This intriguing fight will be broadcast on Showtime pay-per-view and will be a co-main event that also features Badou Jack versus Jean Pascal. The former world champion Jack, 35, will try to re-enter a now stacked light-heavyweight division for the first time in almost a year. The last time he stepped into the ring, his head was literally split open by Marcus Browne, who took a loss to Pascal, 36, in August. Content warning, it’s pretty gnarly, and no, it’s not photoshopped:
Pascal, a mid-tier light heavyweight best known for eating losses to Bernard Hopkins, Dmitry Bivol and Sergey Kovalev twice, finally broke through the glass ceiling after a headbutt prematurely ended his bout with Browne in the eighth round and awarded him with the technical decision victory.
