{"id":547385,"date":"2026-04-24T00:58:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T00:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/547385\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T00:58:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T00:58:08","slug":"gervonta-davis-accused-of-avoiding-unbeaten-contender-he-said-hed-never-take-the-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/547385\/","title":{"rendered":"Gervonta Davis accused of avoiding unbeaten contender: “He said he’d never take the fight”"},"content":{"rendered":"

The return of Gervonta Davis<\/a> feels imminent but whether the WBA lightweight champion-in-recess will fight at 135lbs remains to be seen, with the team of his expected lightweight opponent claiming that \u2018Tank\u2019 is ducking them.<\/p>\n

A three-division champion, Davis had held the WBA title since late 2023 and defended it twice, knocking out Frank Martin and then drawing with Lamont Roach Jr<\/a> in his most recent outing, over a year ago.<\/p>\n

However, back in January, Davis lost his status as champion and was instead named as the champion-in-recess, meaning that he would likely get the opportunity to regain his belt upon his first fight back at 135lbs.<\/p>\n

Although, despite rumours that the Baltimore-born knockout artist will campaign at super-lightweight and rematch Isaac \u2018Pitbull\u2019 Cruz when he returns<\/a>, no new lightweight champion has yet been crowned, nor has a vacant title bout been ordered.<\/p>\n

Floyd Schofield is currently the man poised to benefit from the situation, but his team is becoming increasingly frustrated at how slow the process has moved, awaiting either being elevated to champion or ordered for a title bout \u2013 against Davis or an alternate contender.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Mill City Boxing<\/a>, the father and trainer of \u2018Kid Austin\u2019, Floyd Schofield Snr, stated his belief that Davis is ducking his son and revealed plans to fight a weight-drained version of \u2018Tank\u2019 in their title challenge.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou gotta let the belt go! They violating the law, the federal law, right now. Do I think that \u2018Kid\u2019 is ready for \u2018Tank\u2019? \u2018Kid\u2019 is ready for all of them. There is a reason why Tank said, \u2018I will never get in the ring with that kid. There is a reason that his coach got online and said that Tank will never get in the ring with him.<\/p>\n

\u201cTank said it out his own mouth and Tank\u2019s coach said it online in an interview and said that, \u2018the reason Tank said that is because he looks at him like a big brother\u2019. The thing is, Tank cannot come to 135 and fight Kid, Tank would be at a disadvantage.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to suck him dry and fight him at 135, that is the best advantage that we have right now. If we let Tank get a tune-up, he would be on fire and we let Tank get used to that weight? Nah!<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is about 175lbs right now, he has got to suck all the way back down to 135 and prepare in that ring to fight and the WBA just put in that thing [rehydration clause] where he can only go up to 152.\u201d<\/p>\n

Negotiations for Davis-Cruz II are believed to be ongoing, once confirmation of that event is announced, the WBA will assumably make an announcement of their own as they seek to determine a new lightweight champion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The return of Gervonta Davis feels imminent but whether the WBA lightweight champion-in-recess will fight at 135lbs remains…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":534553,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-547385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=547385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547385\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/534553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}