Top Rank boss and Hall of Fame promoter Bob Arum is ready to pit his best fighters against Gervonta Davis.
Baltimore-bred knockout artist Davis (29-0, 27 KOs) has been dominating his dance partners, but the closet of high-profile internal opponents PBC could field in the future is dwindling.
Tank has swept the likes of Leo Santa Cruz, Mario Barrios, Isaac Cruz, Rolando Romero, Héctor Luis García and Ryan García since 2020.
Many of the mega payday fights the WBA lightweight champion would want to entertain would involve Davis and his team working with Arum, who promotes lightweights Shakur Stevenson and Vasiliy Lomachenko, as well as super lightweight Teofimo Lopez Jr. .
“Tank Davis is an excellent fighter and a great attraction. So sure we would like to match [Stevenson, Lomachenko, and Lopez] against Tank Davis and see how well they would do. I like our guys to win the fight… All three of them would beat Davis. I really believe that… but that’s what they fight for, right? Again, we are open to anything,” Arum told BoxingScene.com in an interview.
“Believe [Davis] It’s the real deal. That’s why we talk about him. He is a fantastic performer. He is a great athlete and a great boxer, but so are the other three. [Stevenson, Lomachenko, and Lopez.]”
Arum alluded that a cross-promotional fight involving Davis would likely need to be financed by Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority and its president, Turki Alalshikh.
Top Rank shows are produced for ESPN platforms; PBC reached an agreement with Amazon Prime last month.
“The way it’s probably going to happen, where it’s all happening, is the Saudis… [they] He could decide to hold the fight after Ramadan this summer and cut the fighters’ paychecks. And that puts an end to any kind of discussion about who gets what percentages,” Arum said.
“The thing about side A and dictating terms is total and complete nonsense. Once you’ve decided on the money and calculated the percentages, everything else will be easy. Everything else is nonsense. But I repeat, if we start talking about side A and side B, then nothing happens, they just insult each other, and that’s childish. That’s why a lot of fights haven’t happened because people involved in the sport, sometimes even us, have been very childish in arguing about things that don’t even matter.”
López will next fight Jamaine Ortiz on February 8.
Lomachenko is scheduled to fight George Kambosos Jr. in the coming months for the vacant IBF lightweight title.
Davis and Stevenson do not have any known fights scheduled at this time.
Manouk Akopyan is a sports journalist, writer and television reporter. He is also a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America and the MMA Journalists Association. He can be reached on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube at @ManoukAkopyan, via email at manouk.[dot]they collect[at]gmail.com or through www.ManoukAkopyan.com.
