The bloom is off the Gervonta Davis rose after a referee's critical blunder

The Guardian

03-03-2025

An egregious non-call by referee Steve Willis allowed Gervonta Davis to salvage a draw on the judges' scorecards in Davis's WBA 135lb title defense against Lamont Roach at Barclays Center on Saturday night.
Davis (now 30-0-1, 28 KOs), has been fighting professionally for 12 years. At age 30, he's an elite fighter with a fervent fanbase that includes 7.6m followers on Instagram. He has yet to permeate the consciousness of mainstream sports fans. But for his admirers, every Gervonta Davis fight is a happening. Davis v Roach set the all-time event attendance record in the history of Barclays Center. The sold-out crowd of 19,250 engendered the arena's second-largest gross ever, eclipsed only by the Rolling Stones.
In the ring, Davis conducts himself like a champion. He's a disciplined fighter who rarely makes foolish choices. Outside the ring, too often, he acts like a thug. Time and again, Gervonta has been involved with the criminal justice system. Several of these occurrences centered on the physical abuse of women. The most serious in terms of legal consequences to Davis resulted in his being incarcerated in 2023 after pleading guilty to charges related to a hit-and-run accident in which four people were injured.
Former Showtime Sports president Stephen Espinoza saw Davis as a cornerstone of Showtime's boxing program before the network went out of the boxing business. Trying to put a positive spin on Gervonta's troubles with the law, Espinoza declared, 'What you get is authentic and raw. It's an undeniable part of culture and media today, and perhaps more now than ever before. The saying 'all publicity is good publicity' is probably more true. I'm not saying it's a good thing to have legal problems, and certainly not the kind of legal issues that Tank [Davis's nickname] has had. But in a grander scheme, that media world we live in, where people are talking about you, it's generally a good thing for your business or future.'
That's a cynical approach. Moreover, while Davis had synergy with Espinoza, Gervonta has had a lesser relationship with boxing's new power broker - Turki Alalshikh (chairman of the Saudi Arabian General Entertainment Authority).
In January, Alalshikh declared, 'I want him [Davis] and I send message now [for] you to [PBC impresario] Haymon: Let's do job, brother. Davis, of course we want him in our country.'
In response, Davis posted on X, 'They made me mad. If they want me, they gotta send me something to my front door .. like 2 Ferraris. Like before I even think about going over there.'
Understandably offended, Alalshikh replied, 'I heard in the media, Davis said, 'Send to me two Ferraris to play in Saudi Arabia.' I said to him, 'We will send you two gloves if you want to play in Saudi Arabia; that's it.''
Davis habitually blows off promotional obligations and has been known to arrive hours late for important media events. The kick-off press conference for Davis v Roach was scheduled to begin at Barclays Center on 3 December at 1pm. Late that morning, the media was advised by email that it had been rescheduled for 3pm. Later in the day, the time was pushed back another hour. The press conference finally started at 5.30pm.
Roach had won the WBA 130lb title by split-decision over Hector Luis Garcia in 2023 and was stepping up in weight to fight Gervonta. Most observers saw Lamont as a sacrificial lamb, which he acknowledged at the press conference, complaining, 'People talking shit about the fight.'
During fight week, Davis's contempt for his promotional obligations was on display again. On Wednesday, he arrived at Gleason's Gym 45 minutes late for a promised 'media workout,' spoke with PBC host Miguel Flores for several minutes, and left the gym without throwing a punch or answering questions from the assembled media.
When fight night came, the eight-bout undercard was a mix of faded former champions, champions with alphabet-soup belts, young prospects, and club fighters without a future. Most of the fights were mismatches. But the night was about Gervonta. Every other fighter on the card, including Roach, was fungible.
The crowds at Davis's fights have a hard edge. Gervonta is an explosive fighter. When he fights, the arena pulsates with excitement. He's skilled defensively, counterpunches well, and sets up his power punches particularly well. He's also a southpaw, which makes the puzzle even more difficult for opponents to solve.
Roach (who came into the fight with a 25-1-1, 10 KOs record) is a solid fighter. But he isn't a puncher and wasn't thought of as being on Davis's level. Gervonta was a 12-to-1 betting favorite.
The fight started slowly. Davis typically waits for his opponent to make a mistake and counters with power. But Roach fought with equal caution and didn't give Gervonta much to counter. There was virtually no action in the early going. Lamont landed a meager seven punches in the first two rounds and Gervonta four. Only the sense of anticipation that accompanies a Gervonta Davis fight gave the proceedings drama.
As the rounds passed, both fighters opened up a bit with Roach holding his own in exchanges. The crowd kept waiting for something big to happen. In round nine, it did. But it wasn't what anyone expected.
Fifty seconds into round nine, Roach landed a jab followed by a solid right hand that landed flush up top. Davis took a knee. And referee Steve Willis blew the call.
Despite starting a count, Willis allowed Davis to go to his corner where a cornerman wiped his face with a towel. Then, without calling a knockdown or otherwise penalizing Gervonta, Willis allowed the action to continue.
That was a horrible mistake. A fighter cannot call a time-out in boxing. At the very least, Willis should have ruled that Gervonta taking a knee was a 'knockdown.' Further on the spectrum, he could have penalized Davis another point for corner interference or even (and this would have been going too far) disqualified him.
Compounding the blunder; the New York State Athletic Commission has a video-replay review official on site who is charged with reviewing incidents of this nature. But the erroneous call was not corrected because the PBC-Amazon production team failed to provide a replay to the commission for review within the requisite one minute before the next round began.
Eric Marlinski scored the fight 115-113 for Davis. Steve Weisfeld and Glenn Feldman had it even at 114-114. Two of the judges - Marlinski and Feldman - scored round nine for Davis, making Steve Willis's blunder a three-point swing on their scorecards.
Had Willis properly called a knockdown, Roach would have won a 115 -112, 114-113, 114-113 decision.
When the draw was announced, the pro-Davis crowd booed loudly. At first, it seemed possible that fans were unhappy because Gervonta hadn't been awarded the decision. But that possibility was erased when the crowd booed Gervonta during a post-fight interview as he explained that he'd taken a knee because, 'I just got my hair done two days ago and she put grease in my shit. So, the grease, when you sweat, it was coming into my face.'
New York boxing fans have a sense of fairness even if some referees don't.
What's next for Davis? For starters, Gervonta lost some of his lustre as a fighter on Saturday night. One also has to question. his state of mind.
Ten years ago, at the dawn of his boxing career, Gervonta told David Greisman, 'I come from a dark background. I was in foster care and group homes and stuff because my mom was on drugs and stuff like that. [Then] my grandma got me back from foster care. I started school. I was in a new neighborhood. So I was a new kid on the block and I was light-skinned and I was short, so I had to fight a lot.'
From those origins, a personality was forged and a fighter born. Now, after myriad troubles, Davis has been talking recently like a man who is reevaluating his life:
'Being betrayed, everything I've been through. That's me now just trying to separate myself from it. I'm trying to move further and further away from where I come from. I feel as if I can become a better person but it's not there yet. The person I can become, I can see it, but this [boxing] is holding me up from getting that. I still got to build myself up and be angry to fight. That's like contradicting myself.'
'It's stuff that I catch myself doing. I would do it and then I'd be like, 'If I didn't have this in me, it wouldn't have happened. I wouldn't have snapped if I wouldn't have had the mean side in me. Or I could handle it in a better way than the way I went about it.' I got kids now. I don't wanna snap on my daughters. I feel as if I can remove everything and work on myself, like going back to school, getting therapy and moving on; I feel like as though that would change me as a man.'
'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. I want everything out of me where so I don't think about even getting angry. I want to be much softer, be more humble and things like that. I don't want to box no more. After the second fight [in 2025], I'm out of the sport.'
But first things first. Davis has unfinished business with Lamont Roach. In all likelihood, they'll fight again. But for now, the bloom is off the Gervonta Davis rose.
Thomas Hauser's email address is [e-mail]. His most recent book – a memoir titled My Mother and Me – is now available in stores. In 2019, he was selected for boxing's highest honor – induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.