Buddy McGirt Throws Support Behind ‘Tank’ Davis-Shakur Stevenson Superfight

Buddy McGirt believes the best fight that can be made at 135lbs would pit the WBA champion Gervonta Davis against the WBC champion Shakur Stevenson.

Davis stopped Detroit’s Frank Martin in eighth rounds earlier in June, and Newark’s Stevenson is to defend his title in the last fight of his existing promotional deal with Top Rank against Artem Harutyunyan on July 6. 

Davis, from Baltimore and 30-0 (28 KOs), is one of boxing’s hottest properties. 

“He’s in a hot division,” McGirt told Seconds Out. “He’s in a very, very hot division. I think the fight right now has to be him and Shakur Stevenson. That’s the fight. That’s the only fight that makes sense in my opinion. That’s got to be the superfight.

“There’s a lot of guys that can test him, but I think the fight right now is him and Shakur. I believe that’s the fight right now.”

Speculation persists that Davis could fight Ukraine’s Vasiliy Lomachenko, but there are numerous moving parts at lightweight and junior welterweight. 

Tape of an old sparring ession between Devin Haney and Davis went viral, but McGirt could not be less interested.

“Sparring is one thing, fighting is a completely different animal,” said the hall of famer. “You can beat someone up in sparring; that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen in the fight. I really don’t feed off that stuff. 

“In my day, you could have been the champ and got your butt kicked two or three times a week – it didn’t matter. You’d learn from it and kept on moving. It wouldn’t affect me personally, because it’s not what I’m going to do in the gym. It’s what I’m going to do fight night what counts.”