Gervonta “Tank” Davis should be the former WBA lightweight champ right now.
But, as we’ve seen for years and decades in boxing, power and influence matter. And, perhaps just as important, there is an overwhelming bias that leans towards the way things are supposed to turn out.
Davis, as a -1600 betting favorite and the undisputed biggest present tense American boxing star, was supposed to beat Lamont Roach Saturday night at the Barclays Center. He was supposed to show up, take a conquering hero walk through the sold-out crowd that he single-handedly brought to Brooklyn, and dazzle his fans with a crushing knockout against an opponent who was fortunate to be the well-paid cannon fodder that night.
Things didn’t turn out the way they were supposed to.
After six-and-a-half deadly dull rounds full of nothing but jockeying for position, the action finally kicked off with, surprisingly, Roach looking like the stronger, sharper, and hungrier fighter.
But that really wasn’t too much of a surprise as Davis routinely allows his opposition to take the lead as he looks for the right shots from the right angles.
Roach, though, didn’t give off the “I’m just happy I poked him and won the round” vibe that many opponents carried with them into the latter stages of their Tank fight. Roach, who is the WBA super featherweight champ and moved up a division to take this opportunity, looked assertive and confident. He wasn’t happily surprised to be competitive– he was coming to win.
And, again, he SHOULD have won.
The final judges’ tally was a fair one– a majority draw with a 115-113 nod to Davis and two scores of 114-114. It was only fair, however, because referee Steve Willis screwed up an earlier call.
In the beginning of the ninth round, Roach landed an alright glancing right hand and then an inconsequential left. Davis froze for a second and took a knee. Then he went to his corner for trainer Calvin Ford to tend to him.
Willis, after hesitating a bit, did the only logical thing. He started the count. But then he stopped at two because…well…because, I guess, Tank Davis, the star of the show, might be hurt…from…a legal punch…that led to him taking a knee?
Surely, Tank can’t give himself up to a knockdown. Stop that count and see what’s really going in. This is Tank Davis, for crissake!
In the end, not calling the knockdown a knockdown made the difference between a monumental Roach upset victory and an unfair, buzzkill draw.
Later, Davis said that he took the knee because grease from his hair had gotten into his eye.
Willis, in this writer’s fertile imagination, would give his signature bug-eyes and shrug his shoulders when asked about the called non-call.
“It should have been a knockdown,” Roach said in his post-fight interview. “If that was a knockdown, I win the fight. He’s saying grease got in his eye, but if he takes a knee and the ref starts counting, it should be a knockdown.”
Yeah, absolutely.
And that takes us back to the bias towards the way things are supposed to be.
We can deep dive and say that this was all part of a cockblock-fix to keep the belt around the money-maker’s waist. But the non-call happened at the beginning of the ninth round, with almost four full rounds to go. It was still likely that a tanked-up Tank would take Roach out like he’s done with guys like Frank Martin, Ryan Garcia, Hector Luis Garcia, and Mario Barrios, who also thought they were getting the upper hand on Davis.
So, no, there was no grand “let’s save Tank” plot on Saturday.
This was simply a case of the star getting the benefit of the doubt and wild preferential treatment, as privileged stars generally do.
As things turned out, Roach’s only victory Saturday was a moral one as he proved the critics wrong– myself included– about his ability to compete with an elite-level talent like Gervonta Davis.
Make no mistake about it, though, PBC will take advantage of the messed up situation by booking a rematch. It’s what any boxing company would do. Jaded fans and media will then paint the situation like this was actually a good thing for Roach. Now he gets a lucrative return bout to “even the score.”
But nobody who competes for a living wants NOT to win what they rightfully earned, even if there’s a consolation prize payday attached to the disappointment.
On Saturday, for everyone at Barclays Center to see and everyone on Amazon Prime PPV to watch, a flat, seemingly disinterested Tank Davis met with a focused, determined Lamont Roach, and they intersected with a Steve Willis who was dead set on nobody deviating from how things were supposed to turn out.
What resulted was a bad night for everyone.
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