LAS VEGAS – It’s as if Gervonta Davis has one of those plastic kitchen timers running through his head.
As he winds it to a start, he goes through his routine. Sees the opening. Downloads the information. Sets free his damaging punches. And then he sets up for the biggest punch of them all.
Tick, tick, tick … boom!
The scene that has played out in 28 of Davis’ 30 bouts transpired again Saturday night in the landmark 100th bout in MGM Grand Garden Arena history, an explosive eighth-round left hand that sent previously unbeaten contender Frank Martin down and out toward the canvas.
“I just had to find my range out – he had a decent jab and was moving a lot. Just had to break him down,” Baltimore’s Davis told BoxingScene after retaining his WBA lightweight belt in highlight-reel fashion.
The victory, coming 15 months after his body-shot knockout of Ryan Garcia, takes the 29-year-old toward a rush of big fights, most likely starting with a stirring unification match against IBF champion Vasiliy Lomachenko.
Does Davis want that fight, amid the interest in making it by November?
“For sure,” Davis said. “We’ll go back to the drawing board and I’ll fight all of ‘em. … All of ‘em. Simple as that. “(It’s) ass-whooping time.”
It certainly was Saturday, after Davis processed the fast and evasive Martin through four rounds before deciding it was time to defuse the challenger’s interest in exchanges by hammering him with the uncorked power blows to the body and head.
Where Martin was once willing to exchange, he now retreated to the ropes as Davis hunted him down.
“I came out to be great, but I came up short,” Martin explained. “I got away from my game plan by being on the ropes too much. That damn sure wasn’t part of the game plan. I was trying to see something that wasn’t there.”
The reason for that, Martin said, was Davis’ wise employment of traps.
“He’s got real power and he does a great job at hitting guys on the button and getting guys out of there,” Martin said. “You’ve got to go in and box. If you don’t see them, he’ll get you out of there.”
Davis appreciated Martin’s praise of the technical brilliance he displays to set up his finishes.
“Smart people can play dumb, but dumb people can’t play smart,” he said.
In a sequence during the seventh round, Davis led Martin to a neutral corner, where he roughed him up before they shifted across the ring and then back to the same neutral corner, where Martin was damaged again.
“I started putting my punches together,” Davis said. “I knew he was going to tire himself out. That was the whole game plan.”
Martin’s ending happened in the same corner, a left uppercut and a right setting up the wrecking-ball final punch and Davis had already sprinted to the opposite neutral corner to celebrate his victory even before the fight was waved off.
“I knew the way he fell, he wasn’t getting back up – the way he laid his head on the mat,” Davis said.
That leaves Davis to anticipate his next bout and he clearly favors the creative puncher known as “The Matrix,” over elusive technician Shakur Stevenson, another three-division champion who’s assigned a July 6 bout in New Jersey following his painfully boring last fight that was void of action and punches.
“You know how it’d go. Everyone in this room knows how that fight would go,” Davis said.
One bout with far more intrigue over the outcome is how unbeaten new WBC interim light-heavyweight champion David Benavidez (29-0, 24 KOs) would fare against the sport’s most popular fighter, Mexico’s four-division champion and undisputed super-middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez.
Alvarez has many options before him, including a hearing this week with the IBF over his mandatory opponent William Scull, along with WBA mandatory Edgar Berlanga and WBC mandatory Benavidez.
But the WBC wants Benavidez to decide within 10 days whether he’s going to surrender his claim as the 168-pound mandatory or ask as the 175-pound WBC interim champion to next fight the winner of the Oct. 12 Dmitrii Bivol-Artur Beterbiev undisputed title fight in Saudi Arabia.
Since the WBC hasn’t moved to strip Alvarez of his belt despite Benavidez’s two-year wait as the top contender, Benavidez appears interested in making the WBC wait in return following his unanimous-decision victory over former light-heavyweight champion Oleksandr Gvozdyk (116-112, 117-111, 119-109) in Saturday’s co-main.
“If (Alvarez) believes he’s the best, come beat me, come shut me up,” Benavidez said.
In addition to the rare task of fighting a bigger man, Benavidez admitted afterward he entered the bout vulnerable due to three training camp injuries (a torn wrist tendon, a sore opposite hand and a small cut over an eye), displaying a gnarly swollen left hand at the post-fight news conference.
“These guys take a bigger shot up here. I won with two messed up hands. That speaks volumes,” he said. “That’s why I wasn’t throwing so many punches. We still dominated against a great ex-champion.”
Does Benavidez want Canelo or the 175-pounders more?
“I definitely want to (invoke) my mandatory rights (at 168), something I’ve worked toward (for so long),” he said. “I can still make 168 easy, so I’d like to come back to 168.”
Yet, Benavidez said he expects to be sidelined from training for two months to heal and Alvarez likes fighting on Mexican Independence weekend in mid-September.
As the WBC interim champion at 175, Benavidez can also press for the Beterbiev-Bivol winner.
“I feel comfortable at both weights. I like (175). It makes you feel like you’re earning the money. It makes you feel like you’re Rocky Balboa,” Benavidez said. “I love getting hit, pushing forward, showing my heart.
“I want to be a fighter who dominates both weight classes. I want to be a Hall of Famer and remembered in the history books. That’s what gets me there.”
He’ll be waiting to see if the WBC can get Alvarez to budge.
Because, in his mind, if the sanctioning body rushes him to commit to either 168 or 175 after his own long wait, how dare them.
Benavidez pointed to the crowd of 13,249 cheering heartily for him upon his ring entrance and victory.
“I want to make my own lane, that’s why I came to 175,” Benavidez said. “I’ve been trying to fight Canelo for a long time now. I have the star power now. People love the way I fight. They interact with me now.
“That’d be a big fight. The world of boxing wins. Everybody wins.”
Well, not everybody would win, and that’s why – for now – the wait on Benavidez’s next move continues.
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