Gervonta Davis says he’ll be facing Frank Martin in the summer on June 22nd at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas. Tank (29-0, 27 KOs) will be defending his WBA ‘regular’ lightweight crown against Martin (18-0, 12 KOs). Martin is a step up from the cannon fodder that Gervonta has been feasting on during his career, but not a big one.
Prepare for a Pricey PPV
This will likely on Amazon Prime PPV and could be expensive. Martin isn’t one of the fighters that fans would like to see Tank Davis fight, as there’s at least six better options than the 29-year-old Martin, but he’s bump up in ability from the guys Gervonta has been facing.
Some casual boxing fans believe Frank Martin is the second best fighter in the lightweight division behind Tank, but that’s a big stretch. He’s a good fighter, but more like the sixth or seventh best in the weight class. There are some guys that would dominate Martin, who has a lot of flaws in his game.
Tank’s Team Plays It Safe (Again)
That could be the reason why Gervonta’s management chose him. If they thought he could win, they would shun him like they’ve done with Vasily Lomachenko for years, Shakur Stevenson, Raymond Muratalla, Andy Cruz, Floyd Scholfield and Abdullah Mason.
Staging the fight in Houston is a peculiar move by Tank Davis, because from Baltimore. Martin comes from Detroit, but his trainer, Derrick James, lives in Dallas. That’s three hours from Houston, so it’s not a big deal.
Fans are excited about the Davis vs. Martin fight, viewing it as one that should have fireworks. Martin had an off-performance last July in his fight against Artem Harutyunyan. He won the fight by a 12 round unanimous decision, but had to press hard to rally to a victory.
In Martin’s three previous fights before that, he’d shined in defeating Michel Rivera, Romero Duno and Jackson Maríñez. One reason Martin had problems with Harutyunyan is that he was better than the guys that he’d fought in the past, and he didn’t know how to deal with a fighter that had ability.
Martin would have lost the fight if Harutyunyan had a good engine because he was making him look bad with his skills.