Posted on 08/03/2021
By: Hans Themistode
With his most recent performance, Gervonta Davis proved that size doesn’t always matter.
On June 26th, earlier this year in front of a jam-packed crowd at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta Georgia, Davis moved up two weight classes to take on a much larger man in Mario Barrios. While the Baltimore native was cautious in his first trip to 140 pounds, he ultimately found his groove and scored three knockdowns on the night before ending things in the 11th. The win for Davis netted him the WBA “Regular” title in the process.
With that victory well behind him, Davis revealed that he plans on returning to the ring this coming October. At the moment, team Davis is currently scouring the boxing landscape as they look for his next possible opponent. Amongst those possible candidates have been: Joseph Diaz, Ryan Garcia and a slew of others.
One name, however, that has received noticeable attention recently, is former unified 147-pound champion, Keith Thurman.
According to promoter of Davis and CEO of Mayweather Promotions, Leonard Ellerbe, he’d put them in the ring against one another in a “nanosecond.”
Thurman, 32, was once considered by most as the best fighter that the welterweight division had to offer. Since defeating Danny Garcia in March of 2017 and unifying titles, Thurman has struggled with activity. The Clearwater, Florida native has fought only twice in a four-year span and is coming off the first defeat of his career at the hands of Manny Pacquiao in July of 2019.
Although injuries have ravaged much of his career as of late, Ellerbe still has a tremendous amount of admiration for Thurman as a fighter.
“Keith can fight his ass off,” said Ellerbe on his social media account. “He’s a guy I got a lot of respect for but that fight I’d make in 2 seconds.”
If Ellerbe did in fact pick up the phone and get both men to sign on the dotted line, it would represent the fifth fight in a row for Davis in a different weight class.
The Baltimore product scored a decisive second-round knockout win against Ricardo Lopez in July of 2019 at 130 pounds. He then followed that up five months later, this time at 135 pounds against Yuriokis Gamboa, stopping him in the 12th. One year later, Davis would drop back down to 130 pounds to stop former multi-division champion Leo Santa Cruz in the sixth round of their contest. And, of course, most recently, Davis made the trek ten pounds north to stop Mario Barrios.
If Davis were to climb up even higher in weight, Ellerbe is very much confident that Thurman will suffer the same fate as those who came before him.
“Tank is not a 47 pounder but Tank would knock him the f*ck out right now.”