Jake Paul vs. Gervonta 'Tank' Davis shows where boxing ends and sports entertainment begins

Yahoo

15 hours ago

Boxers of yesteryear used to dream of seeing their name across one of the oversized billboards that decorate the length of Las Vegas Boulevard, otherwise known as The Strip.
Today, the neon dims but the names Jake Paul and Gervonta Davis are still legible.
Their announcement to box on Nov. 14, which Paul confirmed Wednesday, is no longer a Fight Capital banner but a signpost for how far boxing has drifted from sport, and toward sports entertainment.
Since UFC and WWE merged in 2023, industry observers raised concerns that the MMA market-leader would be at risk if Vince McMahon's playbook infected the booming combat sport.
But, in 2025, it's not the UFC that is blurring the line of showdown and spectacle. It's boxing.
One of the sport's pound-for-pound stars, a thunderous puncher called "Tank" Davis, who had promised to retire after 2025, has chosen to take part in an sideshow bout with the internet sensation Jake Paul, rather than honor a legacy-defining rematch.
Earlier in the year "Tank" took on Lamont Roach Jr. — a super featherweight champion who dared to be great by challenging Davis at lightweight. Roach shook up the world by outworking Davis early. He landed clean combinations, and even wobbled "Tank" with a counter right uppercut in the eighth round of their March 1 fight at Barclays Center in New York City.
So stunned was Davis with Roach's abilities that he turned his back on the fight in the ninth round, and had referee Steve Willis given a proper count, Roach would have scored one of the more monumental wins of the year.
Instead, judges awarded each man a draw.
A rematch had been tentatively planned for the summer, but Davis' arrest on July 11 for a domestic battery incident from the prior month scuppered the do-over.
When the case was dismissed on Aug. 12, it paved the way to reignite talks for Davis vs. Roach 2. It would have been a meaningful fight for the 135-pound landscape, and the sport in general.
Instead, we have a fight that very few asked for, on one of the grandest stages imaginable, as Netflix readies to air the event from State Farm Arena in Atlanta to a significant global audience.
Boxing has had crossover fights before.
Notably, in 2017, there was boxing royalty Floyd Mayweather Jr. against Conor McGregor, the former two-weight UFC champion. But this didn't actually take anything away from the sport. It didn't hold up a division. Mayweather wasn't a titleholder at the time. All it did was provide boxing with another date.
Paul has taken part in these kinds of events before, too, when he took on Nate Robinson on the undercard of Mike Tyson's exhibition with Roy Jones Jr. during the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic. That show, like Mayweather vs. McGregor, didn't hold the sport up. Again, it provided a date in the calendar when boxing was in desperate need of one due to lockdowns, and the subsequent shuttering of sports.
There is a holdup this time, though.
Davis is the WBA lightweight champion. He's denied Roach, who arguably already deserved a win against him earlier this year. And he's denied other fighters in the WBA rankings, like the No. 1-ranked contender Floyd Schofield. He's even denied a box-office unification with WBC ruler Shakur Stevenson — a fight that fans have demanded for years.
Paul, too, could have more meaningful matchups if he wanted.
In his latest bout, he out-pointed the former middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. on June 28 in Anaheim — the same Southern California card in which Gilberto "Zurdo" Ramirez defeated Yuniel Doricos. Ramirez's promoter, Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy Promotions, even said a fight between his cruiserweight boxer and Paul was 'realistic.'
The bout would have provided Paul with legitimacy in boxing, if he does indeed crave that. But an injury Ramirez sustained from that fight, and a subsequent shoulder surgery, curtailed it from being discussed for the time being. An Anthony Joshua fight was also entertained by the heavyweight's representative Eddie Hearn, and Paul had been linked to IBF cruiserweight champion Jai Opetaia as well.
Instead, we get a fight announcement designed for content, clicks and reach — one that shows it's the sport of boxing all along, not the UFC, that was prime for WWE treatment.
And, do you want to know the sickest part?
I like it.
Yes, boxing traditionalists will loathe it. I'm not one of them.
Yes, this matchup delays far more meaningful fights, and it blurs the sport's integrity.
But spectacle is a power in and of itself. This keeps boxing in the news cycle, and pushes Davis into a more mainstream audience than he's ever been exposed to before. With the right kind of promotion and shoulder-programming, "Tank" can tap into an audience that he can leverage should he unify his WBA title with Stevenson's WBC belt, next year. The exhibition also keeps Paul on the right track. Perhaps the plan is to challenge Ramirez for his WBC cruiserweight crown next year, too. Even an exhibition with Davis, in what would only be Paul's 15th boxing event (13 professional fights), is a marked step up than anything the internet content creator has done before.
As much as it may sting purists, this is a money-spinner and an attention-grabber. And it's already grabbed mine — because, love it or loathe it, Paul vs. Davis isn't just an exhibition. It's a spectacle — and the clearest mirror yet of where boxing stands. In 2025, boxing's biggest fights aren't for championship titles — they're for cultural relevance.