WBA/WBO lightweight champion Vasiliy Lomachenko (13-1, 10 KOs) and his promoter Bob Arum seemed to get annoyed last Friday night when they were asked about potentially fighting the highly talented young Gervonta “Tank” Davis (21-0, 20 KOs) by the boxing media after Loma’s blowout fourth round knockout win over the hapless Anthony Crolla (34-7-3, 13 KOs) at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California. Arum sounded highly upset in telling the media that Gervonta’s promoter Floyd Mayweather Jr. says “the kids not ready.”
“I think Gervonta Davis is the best of the best fighter on Twitter,” Lomachenko said after the fight last night.
For the most part, Gervonta took the high road on social media in commenting about Lomachenko’s performance last night against the 32-year-old Crolla. The only negative things Davis, 24, had to say about Lomachenko was his choice of opponent. Davis didn’t know who Crolla was, which is precisely what a lot of U.S boxing fans were saying. It obviously didn’t look good going into the fight that Crolla was TWICE beaten by recent Lomachenko victim Jorge Linares in 2017. The guys that have beaten Crolla during his career, Linares, Derry Mathews, Youssef Al Hamidi and Gary Sykes [x 2], are fighters that would likely stand no chance against Lomachenko. You can’t blame Loma and his promoter Arum for last Friday night’s mismatch. That’s the World Boxing Association’s fault for ranking Crolla #1, and letting him fight a soft opponent in Daud Yordan in a WBA lightweight eliminator rather than having him fight someone that would likely weeded him out long before he got a title shot like Teofimo Lopez, Rances Barthelemy, Devin Haney, Robert Easter Jr., Ryan Garcia, Bryan Vasquez, Aik Shakhnazaryan and Felix Verdejo. You can argue that all of those fighters would have beaten Crolla if the WBA had put them in with him for a WBA title eliminator instead of Yordan.
“Ask Floyd Mayweather. He said the kid [Gervonta Davis] isn’t ready for the fight,” Top Rank Boxing promoter Bob Arum said after the fight last night. “Floyd Mayweather is his promoter. Floyd Mayweather Jr. knows boxing. The question of whether Gervonta Davis is ready to fight a master in Lomachenko should be put to Floyd Mayweather Jr. Let him answer the question. DON’T ASK STUPID QUESTIONS ABOUT GERVONTA DAVIS when his promoter says he’s not ready,” a testy sounding Arum said.
The way that Arum chewed apart the media when asked about a potential fight between Gervonta Davis and Lomachenko looked almost like he doesn’t want that fight to happen. Think about it. If Lomachenko faces Davis and gets knocked out by him, all that hard work of promoting by Arum for the two-time Olympic gold medalist will go down the drain.
This was a wasted opportunity on Arum and Lomachenko’s part last night. When that question about Tank Davis was asked of Loma, he and Arum should have been positive, not sounding pessimistic about the fight. They took the wrong approach to answering the question. Lomachenko had the spotlight on him. He and Should have told the boxing media that they absolutely want the fight with Gervonta, who is one of the best fighters in the world today. They may not like it, but the reality is, Gervonta will be around long after Lomachenko retires. For that reason, Arum and Loma should be trying to setup a fight with him instead of calling him a keyboard warrior and saying that his promoter Mayweather won’t make the fight.
Arum doesn’t have anyone in his Top Rank stable to match against Lomachenko, whether he wants to admit it or not. The boxing public isn’t going to want to see rematches between Lomachenko and Jorge Linares and Jose Pedraza. And once Lomacheno fights Teofimo Lopez, Arum can’t put those guys in with each other five times like he did with Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez, for lack of other fighters to match him with. Arum needs to be positive, as does Lomachenko, when it comes to trying to setup fights with talented young stars like Gervonta Davis. Arum and Loma sounded like they were bitter for some reason, and they shouldn’t have been like that. Loma got a victory last night, albeit against a fighter that at best is a bottom 10 level contender, and at worst, a bottom 15. Crolla is well connected in being promoted by Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn, which some boxing fans would argue is why he, rather than guys like Haney and Barthelemy, was able to fight in a WBA lightweight eliminator against Yordan. Lomachenko vs. Crolla was an embarrassment, and it strengthens the argument that Loma should forget about unifying the lightweight division, and instead pick out the best fights and go in that direction. Of course, if Arum isn’t able to setup fights with the talented lightweights in the division due to politics or whatnot, then it makes sense for Lomachenko to collect titles, because he can fight guys that Top Rank might not be able to negotiate fights with.
“No disrespect, but who is this guy?” Gervonta Davis said on his Twitter in commenting on Lomachenko’s opponent Anthony Crolla, who a lot of boxing fans in the U.S had never heard of until seeing him last Friday night get drilled by Loma. “He [Lomachenko] number 1 P4P because he undefeated and never been close to losing.Max hang it up. LOL, 3 shots from me. Good work though,” Davis said.
It’s unclear if Gervonta is saying that he’ll KO Lomachenko with three punches or Crolla. If he’s talking Crolla, Davis might have been able to get the job done with one last night. Davis is clearly a much harder puncher than Lomachenko. That’s not a knock on Loma. He’s just not a huge puncher by nature. Gervonta’s power was tested by Fox Sports on their punching machine, and he came out above heavyweight Dominic Breazeale with his left hand punching power. WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder just barely punches harder than Davis with his left hand. That’s impressive. With Davis’ heavyweight punching power at super featherweight, he’d be a HUGE threat to Lomachenko. Arum and Loma may not want to admit it, but Davis has that game changer of a left hand that makes his opponents’ boxing skills meaningless.