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Tank Davis vs. Roach Jr: Full Highlights | 09:21
Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis warned earlier in the week that Lamont Roach Jr. was in for a “rude awakening” — but on Sunday it was the three-division titleist who copped a major scare.
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WBA lightweight champion Davis (31-0-1, 28 KOs) retained his title but had to settle for a majority draw against Roach (25-1-3, 10 KOs) in New York.
One judge scored the fight 115-113 in Davis’ favour while the other two scored it 114-114.
In reality, Roach was the one who had to settle for the majority draw and could feel hard done by to not leave Barclays Center with another belt after a contentious knockdown ruling in round nine.
Davis took a knee and retreated to his corner but referee Steve Willis did not rule it a knockdown, which would have seen him automatically lose a point from his score.
Boxing superstar Terence Crawford wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, that he had “never seen” someone take a knee and not have it counted as a knockdown.
“Must of (sic) forgot the rules for tonight,” he added.
Promoter Lou DiBella wrote: “Horrible that a fight of that magnitude was decided on a referee mistake, a mistake that should have been correctable … can’t just take a knee!”
ESPN’s Mike Coppinger described it as a “big-time missed call” while Sports Illustrated’s Chris Mannix wrote it was an “incredible missed call”.
Speaking after the fight, Davis claimed he had his hair done two days before and that his hairdresser had put “grease in my s***”.
“When you are sweating and s*** like that, the grease came into my face and it burnt my eyes,” he added.
The crowd then started to boo to the displeasure of Davis.
“Yo why you all booing like I’m talking b*****?” he yelled in response.
Davis, who suffered the first blemish on his professional record, said he wanted a rematch and Roach agreed, saying he “definitely thought” he won and that the two could “run it back”.
“Gervonta is a great fighter,” he said.
“I thank him for the opportunity to show the world to all the people that was doubting me, all the people that was talking s***, all the fake boxing media… even though I didn’t win tonight — I thought I did — but that’s a win for me in my book. But we not satisfied. We need a real W.”
Davis doubled down in a social media post on Monday (AEDT), claiming he was hard done by with the result, while also acknowledging he “shouldn’t have done that”.
“They took the fight from me and made it a draw becuz (sic) I did that bull*** knee..but I landed the most punches in the fight,” Davis wrote.
“He didn’t even hit me w a punch when I took the knee. I get it though, I shouldn’t have done that but that hair grease was burning my eyes!”
Roach was all class when addressing the knockdown controversy, not taking anything away from Davis and adding that he didn’t think his opponent was lying when he explained why he took a knee.
“But if you voluntarily take a knee and the ref starts counting that should be a knockdown,” Roach added.
“If that’s a knockdown I win the fight.”
Further underlining that point, prominent boxing journalist Dan Rafael tweeted that missing that knockdown call had “cost Roach literally MILLIONS of dollars and career-defining victory and another world title”.
“Another utter shit show for the New York State Athletic Commission to not call that a knockdown even using replay!!! WTF were they looking at????????????????” he added.
Roach was the heavy underdog for Sunday’s fight, having moved up from the junior lightweight while he had also never faced an opponent of Davis’ calibre and punching power.
It was a cautious start to the opening round from Davis, who largely let Roach do all the work as he maintained the pressure without overcommitting too much either, working on his jab to the body.
Davis started to pick up his activity in the second round, working behind his jab more but still not landing any shots of note, while Roach continued to flash his jab without landing much either.
The third round was similarly close, even as Davis started to let his hands go more, landing a one-two early before Roach responded by working to the body and later landing a chopping right hand.
The fourth followed suit, with Davis scoring on a left hand and then another before Roach landed a short uppercut, followed by a right hand later in the round as they broke from the clinch.
It seemed like Davis was just waiting for a moment of weakness from Roach to explode, and he started to poke holes in his game in the fifth round.
Roach opened the round by landing a right hand before Davis fired back with a shot to the body, then following that up with a series of left hands as he started to talk to Roach.
Roach, in turn, started to engage in a verbal warfare with Davis — seemingly falling into his trap.
At this point Davis was starting to land the more impactful shots of the two, including a clean left in the final 20 seconds of the sixth round.
But Roach then flipped the script in the seventh round as he started to unload, throwing 52 punches compared to just 28 for Davis.
Roach was certainly the more active of the two, although he wasn’t necessarily landing much more (16 to 12).
Lamont Roach Jr. punches Gervonta Davis. Al Bello/Getty Images/AFPSource: AFPThe power shots definitely weren’t getting through cleanly early in the round for Roach, while Davis had the better moment early as he landed a big left hand.
But as the round started to wear on Roach found more success as he landed a left of his own and then a hook upstairs after some nice work to the body to close out the period.
At this point it was clear that this was going to be no walkover for Davis, who landed a left in the eighth only to be stunned by a big counter right hand from Roach, following it up with an uppercut.
If Roach hadn’t already earned Davis’ respect, he definitely had by the end of the ninth round as he was spared the first knockdown of his professional career in controversial circumstances.
Roach landed and Davis looked to have taken a knee but referee Willis ruled it not to be the case.
It was potentially the wake-up call Davis needed as he started to load up after the fight got back underway, but Roach didn’t back down either, landing a strong counter-right.
The back-and-forth fireworks continued until the final bell as the fight went the distance.
