When Vasyl Lomachenko easily defeated Guillermo Rigondeaux and was left looking for his next opponent – one who would hopefully give him a testing fight the way Rigondeaux never did – plenty of fight fans put forth the name Gervonta Davis. The classy and skilled 22 year old has already won a major belt and he has the kind of speed that might just give Lomachenko some problems.
However, the way Floyd Mayweather tells it, it is he who has put the brakes on “Tank,” one of his young fighters, going in with Lomachenko next. Speaking with FightHype, “Money” said that although Davis has asked him about fighting Lomachenko, he has advised him to wait.
“Tank has a promoter. Tank can come to me and say, ‘Floyd, this is the fight that I want.’ At the end of the day, I’m going to say there is no rush,” Mayweather explained to FightHype.com. “You’re still young. If you want to fight there’s plenty of fights. You’ve got a lot of fights left in you. You’re only 22 or just turned 23. He got 15 years left. But if you rush and take all the hard fights now, then you won’t make it to 38 or 39 in the boxing business. At the end of the day I ain’t got nothing against Lomachenko. Just don’t try to disrespect any fighter who is with me. Tank ain’t hiding from you. Tank wants to fight you. Me, as a mentor and father figure, I told him there’s no rush.”
Say what you want about Mayweather, but you cannot say he wasn’t ultra-smart in the way he boxed his entire career, taking the right fights at the right time and coming out on top every single time. Okay, the critics say Floyd cherry picked and waited too long before taking some of his fights – the one with Manny Pacquiao especially; this one at its hottest in 2009 or 2010, not 2015 – but Mayweather did things his way.
Is Mayweather being smart in making Davis be smart and wait before he gets in there with 29 year old Lomachenko? Yes, but is he also robbing us fans of a great fight, or a potentially great fight, right now?
Davis is out of the Lomachenko sweepstakes, for now at least, which means “Hi-Tech” is still on the look out for his next challenger. Who might it be?
