Tank’s on Empty? Why Losing Gervonta Davis May Be Disastrous For Boxing

Gervonta “Tank” Davis just may be the last American boxing star– and he’s eager to get the fuck away from boxing.

“After next year, I’m out of it,” Davis told media on Tuesday, at a press conference announcing his March 1 bout with Lamont Roach. “Yeah, out of this sport.”

“This shit is trash, garbage,” he also told Yahoo! Sports. “I’m fed up with the whole shit…I don’t care about belts and I don’t care about that stuff. I don’t care about none of that…I just want to be able to make money and stay out the way, that’s it. I want to be living without being seen.”

The 30-year-old Baltimore native would continue that line of thought in an interview with Dan Canobbio of Inside Boxing Live.

“That’s why I don’t want to box no more…I want to do therapy, right? But I feel as though, if I do therapy, it would lose the fire that I have inside of me,” he said, giving off distinct depressive, self-doubting post-prison Mike Tyson vibes. “I want everything out of me where so I don’t never think about fighting again, I don’t think about even getting angry. Because I have two girls, two daughters. I want to be much softer, be more humble and things like that.”

Gervonta Davis has that unmistakable “something” that, in a boxing sense, translates into star power. Blessed with explosive one-punch power, along with the patience and skill to set up perfect openings for that power, his fights have become events. His live gate appeal at various venues and various cities serves as irrefutable proof that the undefeated three-division world champ is a star. And despite some lagging sales numbers for all but one of his seven top-of-bill pay-per-view outings, it’s also pretty much irrefutable proof that the 5-foot-5 banger is, at the very least, American boxing’s biggest star at the moment.

That’s why Davis’ existential crisis should be so damn troubling for the US boxing scene as a whole.

With the entire sport seemingly being uprooted and moved to Saudi Arabia, American boxing has responded with a whimper of quiet resignation. Dates have failed to materialize, matchups have failed to take shape, and the entire scene has grown shockingly stagnant since American promoters have signed on to Saudi “partnerships” and key American fighters have signed themselves over to Saudi figurehead Turki Alalshikh. In the eight months between Davis’ headlining June bout against Frank Martin and this coming February’s David Benavidez-David Morrell show, American boxing promoters will have put on only one major event– Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson.

That’s not a good thing for an American fight scene that was already thin and growing thinner.

Without meaning to sound melodramatic, the end of Tank Davis could mean the end of a lot. Mostly, it would mean the end of the big American-made boxing event, at least for the foreseeable future. It would mean the sport loses the closest thing it has to a crossover star (unless you count the fragile and frequently off-putting Ryan Garcia). It would also mean the loss of the last truly needle-moving domestic boxing product in the US.

It also needs to be asked whether Davis, even if he changes his mind and decides to keep fighting, will be able to find the fights he needs to further elevate his star. With more and more potential big ticket opponents working under promoters controlled by Saudi funding, the pool of available B-sides is growing slimmer. Throw in the fact that he had run somewhat afoul of Turki Alalshikh during the early days of the Saudi takeover and there seems to be some incentive to block out and/or tame what may be the last American holdout in the face of Saudi boxing manifest destiny.

Davis’ March 1 bout with super featherweight titlist Lamont Roach is not the kind of fight that’s going to do much for anyone other than pad bank accounts and keep a, possibly, increasingly disinterested Davis busy.

While Davis-Roach could turn out to be a better-than-expected fight, it’s not an appropriately big event for a fighter who should be squarely in the meat and potatoes of his boxing legacy run.

Still, it’s better than him NOT fighting– especially now, as figurative U-haul trucks not-so-figuratively cart away the remains of American boxing.

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