Gervonta Davis held onto his World Boxing Association lightweight title by the narrowest of margins on Saturday night, fighting to a majority draw with Lamont Roach Jr despite a highly controversial moment in the ninth round that should have saddled Davis with the first defeat of his career.
The unbeaten 30-year-old southpaw nicknamed Tank could finally breathe a sigh of relief when the final scores were announced following a tightly wound 12-round affair full of two-way action. One ringside judge scored the bout 115-113 for Davis, while the other two had it level at 114-114, ensuring the three-weight champion from Baltimore remained without a loss. (The Guardian had it 117-111 to Roach.)
The key talking point came in the ninth, when Davis voluntarily took a knee near his corner before leaning over the ropes, seemingly in search of assistance to clear an issue with his eye. Under the unified rules of boxing, a fighter touching the canvas with anything other than their feet is considered a knockdown, which would have cost Davis a point, if not an outright disqualification for the corner’s interference in the middle of a round. But referee Steve Willis simply allowed Davis to continue after a stern warning, a choice that almost certainly altered the outcome.
A sold-out crowd of 19,250 at the Barclays Center made their feelings known when Davis later claimed his vision was impaired by grease from his hair.
“It should have been a knockdown,” Roach said. “If that was knockdown, I win the fight. He’s saying grease got in his eye, but if he takes a knee and the ref starts counting, it should be a knockdown. It is what it is. I’m not banking on that knockdown to win. I just thought I pulled it out.”
Granted special permission to retain his WBA title at 130lb while taking on Davis at 135, Roach came up just short in his bid to claim a world championship in a second weight class against an opponent who went off as a vertiginous 1-20 favorite.
“I think I pulled it out in the last three rounds for sure,” Davis said. “I was catching him with some clean shots. I feel I was breaking him down as the rounds were going on, but he kept coming so I didn’t want to make mistakes and I kept it cautious.”
From the opening bell Roach (25-1-2, 10 KO) showed no fear of the heavily favored champion. The 29-year-old from Washington DC remained composed in the opening stages, using his movement and counterpunching to keep his opponent from settling into a rhythm.
Davis (30-0-1, 28 KO), a notoriously slow starter, spent the first few rounds probing, but his usual patience bordered on inactivity. Roach took advantage, landing sharp right hands and winning most of the early exchanges.
The familiarity between the old amateur rivals seemed to benefit Roach, who appeared more poised and comfortable even as Davis began to turn up the pressure in the middle rounds. A concussive right hand in the sixth signaled the champion’s awakening, but Roach took it well and stood his ground. In the seventh, he stunned Davis with a straight right, forcing the champion to tie up. The challenger, operating with supreme confidence, began dictating the pace and throwing more punches in combination, turning what many expected to be a one-sided fight into a tooth-and-nail scrap.
The eighth round saw Roach land a massive counter right uppercut that briefly wobbled Davis, proving he could take the champ’s best shots and fire back. Then came the ninth when controversy struck. After absorbing a left hand from Roach that didn’t seem to land with full impact, Davis took a knee. Whether from fatigue, misplacement of his mouthpiece, or something else, it was a moment that should have been ruled a knockdown. Instead, the third man Willis issued only a warning, giving Davis a chance to recover. Fueled by frustration, Davis came out swinging, unleashing bombs, but Roach absorbed them and kept pressing forward.
By the championship rounds, Davis was lunging, throwing wild shots that Roach expertly countered. In the 11th, Roach sealed the round with a crisp counter right, outworking a visibly frustrated Davis. With three minutes left, Davis, known for his late-fight heroics, tried once more to bait Roach into a mistake. But Roach wouldn’t bite. He stuck to his game plan, making Davis miss and landing just enough to keep control.
Both men called for a rematch in the immediate aftermath.
“I want to run it back for sure,” said Roach, who landed 112 of 400 shots (28%) according to Compubox’s punch statistics, compared to 103 of 279 for Davis (36.9%). “I’ll be back on the grand stage again, where I belong.”
Davis said that it was his own substandard performance that made the fight close rather than anything Roach brought to the table.
“To be honest, I really made it competitive,” Davis said. “For sure, Lamont is a great fighter. He’s got the skills, he’s got punching power. It was a learned lesson. Shout-out to Lamont Roach and his whole team. Hopefully we can run it back.”
