From Brooklyn to Belfast, boxing was dominated by officiating controversy this weekend, and Riyadh Season is setting up an enormous weekend in May.
Controversy! Boxing fans are sick of it, boxing promoters can never get enough of it, and it remains inevitable in this disorganized sport that still maintains its Wild West elements.
From Brooklyn to Belfast, boxing’s headlines and big fight results were dominated by complaints about officials and the perceived bias and favoritism shown toward big money draws and hometown favorites.
Tank Davis gets the benefit, escapes with draw
I think Gervonta “Tank” Davis deserved to lose that fight on Saturday night with Lamont Roach. I didn’t have Roach with a massive advantage, scoring the fight 115-113, but it’s one where I really believe that Roach (25-1-2, 10 KO) truly did enough, this wasn’t scoring rounds for someone just doing better than expected.
A lot of scores around the internet and in our community were similar.
The draw itself, based on how the fight went round to round, is not the worst call, at least in my opinion. None of the cards were outright absurd. Steve Weisfeld and Glenn Feldman both had it even, 114-114, which is a one-round difference to my card, and even Eric Marlinski’s 115-113 Davis card is just two rounds different. Were there two rounds I could have scored to Davis instead of Roach? Sure, yeah.
The biggest controversy in Brooklyn came from referee Steve Willis refusing to rule a knockdown against Davis (30-0-1, 28 KO) in the ninth round when Davis clearly, obviously, without any other way to interpret it, took a knee after a punch from Roach landed.
The argument is not that Davis took the knee because he was so badly hurt from the punch. Even Lamont Roach believes Tank probably really did have something in his eye from chemicals in his recently-done hair, which was Davis’ post-fight explanation, and matches up with his next move, going over to his corner without approval or supervision from Willis to have them wipe his face with a towel, which is all Davis did, he didn’t wait around for extra advice or try to buy more time.
The problem is that Davis took the knee. And you simply can’t do that and not be ruled down. Gervonta Davis is 30 years old. He’s been a professional for 12 years. He’s been boxing the vast majority of his life. He knows the rules, and it’s not up to a referee to decide to treat him like a baby and allow that to slide, which is what Willis did.
Steve Willis is, over his career, a good referee. He’s done a lot of world title fights, a lot of big fights. But there are reasons people are going to believe he gave Davis an unreasonable amount of preferential treatment by not making that call as he should have. Tank, of course, is the biggest star left in the decayed ruins of the Premier Boxing Champions stable. He’s one of boxing’s biggest drawing cards, a genuine ticket-seller with a fan base that busts through the tiny bubble of boxing’s core audience. It’s always easy — and often reasonable — to be suspicious of the way those fighters are treated, and this is a case where it becomes hard to understand the official’s reasoning in any other way.
For what it’s worth, two judges gave that round to Tank Davis, 10-9, and it really should have been a 10-8 Roach round.
Gervonta Davis and Lamont Roach both want to rematch, and they should. And the PBC world will be happy with all of this, because Tank vs Roach 2 is a lot bigger than Tank vs Roach was thanks to all of this controversy.
But is it so much to ask this sport to be more of a sport?
Paddy Donovan vs Lewis Crocker & Marcus McDonnell
Pro wrestling has “handicap matches,” where one wrestler faces two or more, or two face three or more, etc. You get the idea.
Paddy Donovan had a similar experience in Belfast yesterday, as much of his fight with Lewis Crocker seemed to be him taking on the duo of Crocker and referee Marcus McDonnell, who deducted two points for use of the head during the fight’s eight finished rounds, before disqualifying Donovan at the end of the eighth for a shot after the bell that dropped Crocker.
Crocker (21-0, 11 KO) had also been down moments prior, and Donovan (14-1, 11 KO) was looking to finish. The building was loud in Belfast — one of the very best boxing cities on the planet, by the way — and it is entirely possible that Donovan just didn’t hear the bell, and that McDonnell, too, didn’t get in there quick enough to break the action.
Let’s go ahead and be more balanced than dramatic again. On the one hand, it’s a harsh call that came as a result, really, of questionable deductions previous. On the other, to be entirely fair, it was a shot well and clearly after the bell, and Donovan did already have two points taken. On paper, without the nuance of having actually seen how it all happened, it’s kind of understandable that Donovan got disqualified.
If you actually saw it all happen, of course, it gets a lot murkier. It’s important to have that context. And with that context, there is at least some belief that Donovan kind of has to blame himself, at least a little bit.
Though Crocker won this IBF eliminator, Matchroom promoter Eddie Hearn sounds prepared to push for a rematch between Crocker and Donovan, who already drew a good crowd once and would again. Donovan really was the class boxer in the fight, fairly easily handling Crocker, but Crocker was also tough and took a lot of good shots and punishment, and said the plan was to take over in the second half.
I do think Donovan is just a better fighter, but would have no problem seeing the fight again given how this played out. And yet again, the promoters are happy, as controversy elevates a potential rematch to a new level.
Riyadh Season setting up massive May weekend
We already knew Turki Alalshikh has Canelo vs William Scull coming on May 3 in Riyadh, but now the Saudi promoter is making a full, enormous global boxing weekend out of the three days before Cinco de Mayo, which has been one of boxing’s biggest weekends of the year for many years now.
On Friday, May 2, in Times Square, New York, Riyadh Season will promote an event that features returns for Ryan Garcia, Teofimo Lopez, and Devin Haney. Garcia and Haney will be moving up to welterweight to face Rolly Romero and Jose Ramirez, respectively, while Teofimo will defend his WBO super lightweight title against mandatory challenger Arnold Barboza Jr.
It’s a good card. Obviously the design is to set up Garcia vs Haney 2, and Teofimo is facing the guy he should face, who has earned the chance, in arguably the best fight that can be made at 140 right now.
We’ll also be seeing Naoya Inoue make his return to the U.S. on Sunday, May 4, facing an opponent to be named, now expected to be either Ramon Cardenas or Murodjon Akhmadaliev, as Alan Picasso has withdrawn from negotiations. We’ll surely know Inoue’s opponent soon.
More from this week:
- The monthly rankings are BACK! They came in before Saturday’s action, but you can still go look at them.
- From the Tank vs Roach undercard: Gary Antuanne Russell won his first world title by dominating Jose Valenzuela, Alberto Puello retained his 140 lb belt with a narrow win over Sandor Martin in a fight far better than expected, and Yoenis Tellez out-pointed a still competent but past-prime Julian Williams to claim an interim 154 lb title.
- We had a big card in Tokyo last Monday, too, which saw Junto Nakatani retain his bantamweight title by knocking out David Cuellar, and Tenshin Nasukawa graduated to legitimate contender with a strong win over Jason Moloney. It looks like Nakatani will unify against IBF titlist Ryosuke Nishida next, while Tenshin will likely go after the WBO belt held by Yoshiki Takei, a fellow ex-kickboxer.
- Chris Eubank Jr hit Conor Benn in the head with an egg in what seemed a fairly obvious, agreed-to stunt to me, but will definitely work for the larger public that, like, more than buying into these things, they want to, because it makes things more fun. Eddie Hearn and Ben Shalom both did their work to make it seem very real and very serious. This fight is bizarre, because it truly is a massive event for the UK, but it has so little actual boxing relevance. It’s sort of like Misfits Boxing on steroids. Or eggs.
- Another big event from Japan is coming to ESPN+ on March 13, with Kenshiro Teraji facing Seigo Yuri Akui in the flyweight unification main event.
- Rolly Romero also spoke up earlier in the week about a potential Tank Davis vs Shakur Stevenson fight, saying, “It’s a horrible fight.” Rolly says a lot of things, but I think even people who want to see Tank vs Shakur know it runs an extremely high risk of being an all-time stinker, and that thought will only be solidified after Tank vs Roach.
- Martin Bakole has been promised a big fight in the spring after stepping in on extremely short notice and losing to Joseph Parker on February 22. Again, the one major, boxing promoter credit I will absolutely give Turki Alalshikh is that he isn’t bothered by “his” fighters taking losses in tough matchups. That is the way forward and really has been for years, but the established boxing promoters have rarely been able to change their mindsets about it other than for Derek Chisora, for whatever reason. (Chisora draws money is why. It’s a clear reason.)
- In similar-ish news, Josh Padley has officially signed with Matchroom Boxing following his move to step in late and lose to Shakur Stevenson on that same card. You know what’s funny? That show was not remotely like a usual situation of that sort, because it doesn’t really matter to the actual promoter of the event whether the show made money or not. They could have just moved on without those fights. But at least Bakole and Padley are getting opportunities beyond stepping up.
- Top lightweight prospect Abdullah Mason will face veteran Giovanni Cabrera on April 5.
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