That’s all for tonight. Thanks for following along with us and be sure to check out the full fight report here.
“I felt like in the beginning, I was in control, then got a little too comfortable,” Martin says. “I got caught up with me chilling on the ropes, trying to find that bigger shot. It wouldn’t present itself, so I stopped doing my movement. Once I stopped doing my movement, he was able to land more shots. Once I stopped doing my thing, he got a lot more shots on me.”
Martin is asked if it was the feeling of success that caused him to let his guard down.
“I wouldn’t say it was, like, me feeling my success,” he says. “It was just me trying to figure out what I could do to slow the pressure down from coming. I wasn’t trying to move too much, too excessive, because I felt like that’s what they wanted me to do, tire my legs out. So I was trying to slow it down a little bit and kind of pace myself instead of moving so much. But he came in, he landed a big shot and it was a shot I didn’t see.”
Davis is asked when he’ll fight again. And whether he will take on Vasiliy Lomachenko, Shakur Stevenson or Isaac ‘Pitbull’ Cruz. Good questions!
“Most importantly, I want to just get back to the drawing board, get back in the gym and just stay focused,” he says. “I felt that was a little rusty, but all them guys is on my radar.”
Well, it’s not a no.
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“I was a little rusty, but it’s OK. I’m back,” Davis says of the 421-day layoff. “I feel as though that I ain’t warm up completely like I wanted to. Well, I did warm up, but I got cold as as the fight was going on before me, but it’s OK. No excuses.”
Asked if Martin’s footwork was bothering him early on as the challenger built up a lead on the scorecards, Davis says it was all part of his fight plan.
“His footwork wasn’t bothering me,” he says. “I knew that he was gonna tire down, so that’s what I was doing. I would just stand there, be a target for him just so he could tire himself out, and once he tired himself out, I’ll just start picking him apart.”
He continues: “I’ve been around for a long time. I’ve been training since I was seven years old, competing since I was eight. So it’s like second nature. It’s just about staying focused, making sure my mind is on the goal, and that’s always to come out on top.”
The Compubox punch statistics lend numerical context to the destruction. Davis landed 79 of 178 shots (44.4%) compared to 81 of 270 for Martin (30.0%). But Tank was even better on power punches, landing 54 of 101 (53.5%) and 23 of 33 in the seventh and eighth rounds (70.0%).
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Gervonta Davis wins by eighth-round knockout!
Round 8
Martin backs himself into a corner, yet again, but this time Davis stuns him with an right uppercut then finishes him off with two clubbing left hooks. And Martin is down in a heap! Davis is dancing on the turnbuckle as referee Harvey Dock counts Martin out!
DOWN GOES MARTIN!@Gervontaa "Tank" Davis sticks it 🥊 pic.twitter.com/euLAVe9Pno
— Sports on Prime (@SportsonPrime) June 16, 2024
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Round 7
Davis lands a couple of shots and Martin reels backwards, but doesn’t look hurt. These punches might be getting through by now. The champion has Martin up against the ropes and is throwing punches in rapid combinations. Martin avoids the majority of them but the pressure is building. And Martin lands a counter left hook against the run of play! That was a good shot near the end of the frame, but it doesn’t cancel out all of Davis’s fine work over the session. For Davis, it was clearly his best round of the fight.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Davis 10-9 Martin (Davis 66-67 Martin)
Round 6
Davis traps Martin in a corner and lets his hands go, but Martin blocks or parries most of them. Davis is stepping up his offense but Martin sticks with a gameplan that’s worked for him so far. Martin’s crafty defense is really limiting Davis’s opportunities to counter. This was another very close round, but we’ll shade it to Davis on activity.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Davis 10-9 Martin (Davis 56-58 Martin)
Round 5
Davis is starting to get Martin’s timing down. He lands a right hook flush to Martin’s nose, his best shot of the fight. The challenger is moving almost exclusively in reverse, throwing (and landing) punches off the back foot, scoring effectively even as the looming menace seems to favor Davis. Davis lunges in with a right hook that lands, but Martin’s backward movement absorbed a lot of the power. Another close round for Martin.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Davis 9-10 Martin (Davis 46-49 Martin)
Round 4
Davis, still walking Martin down, catches his foe with a thudding body shot along the ropes but it doesn’t seem to hurt the challenger. More of the same for the first half of the fourth round, until Davis starts to open up. He lands an uppercut to Martin’s body and misses with a couple of sweeping power shots. Davis is really beginning to let his hands go and the crowd swells with anticipation.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Davis 10-9 Martin (Davis 37-39 Martin)
Round 3
Another strong round for Martin, who’s doing everything right so far. He’s outthrowing and outlanding the champion, nullifying his foe’s attack with the job, tying up when he needs to and using footwork to make himself an elusive target. Whether he can keep it up for nine more rounds is the question. Only two of Gervonta Davis’s 29 fights to date have made it to the cards.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Davis 9-10 Martin (Davis 27-30 Martin)
Round 2
Martin is throwing and landing more shots in the early going but we’ve seen this before in Davis, who’s like a tightly wound spring waiting for his moment to strike. Some very deft footwork by the challenger to get out of harm’s way before Davis can pin him down. Davis lands a counter left to the body. Then another. Martin continues to look to establish the jab to keep Davis at bay. The champion unloads with a flurry of punches but Martin wraps him up before he can inflict any damage. Another round for Martin but he’s done nothing so far to gain Davis’s respect.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Davis 9-10 Martin (Davis 18-20 Martin)
Round 1
There’s the bell! And Davis looks tiny in there. The champion is known for his slow starts but he’s already walking Martin down behind a Philly shell defense. Martin lands a couple of shots to Davis’s ribs. Martin is backing himself up into a corner but landing shots off the back foot. Davis hasn’t thrown much but he’s timing his opponent. Davis throws a hard left hand and Martin wraps up. Not much to choose from in a feeling-out round for both men, but Martin landed a few more shots.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Davis 9-10 Martin (Davis 9-10 Martin)
Here we go. The final instructions have been given by referee Harvey Dock, the seconds are out and we’ll pick it up with round-by-round coverage from here!
Ring announcer Jimmy Lennon has emerged from the tunnel. He announces each fighter and they make their entrance into the arena. First it’s Martin then Davis, who makes the ringwalk accompanied by Baltimore rapper OTR Chaz.
Ryan Garcia has taken his seat near ringside for tonight’s main event. He’s wearing a short that says TANK’S #1 FAN on the front and REMATCH ME BITCH! on the back. Considering their first fight generated more than 1m pay-per-view buys and a live gate in excess of $22m, that can and likely will be arranged.
Ryan Garcia is here at the Gervonta Davis PPV…wearing a shirt that says “Rematch me B***h”#Boxing #DavisMartin pic.twitter.com/dV2VCI94s7
— Sean Zittel (@Sean_Zittel) June 16, 2024
“I think it’s a 7 out of 10, honestly,” Benavidez says when asked to rate his performance. “Oleksandr’s a great fighter, you know? No wonder he’s the ex-champion and an Olympic medalist. I felt like I had a great fight [against a] tough fighter and we’re we’re looking to move on.”
Asked why he seemed like a different fighter tonight, Benavidez cites the move up in weight.
“I was trying to get the feel of the light heavyweight division,” he says. “They hit a little bit harder up here, so I had to get a feel for it. I’m just happy I was able to make it tonight because two weeks ago, I suffered a cut in my eye. I also had a a torn tendon on my right hand. I didn’t think I was gonna make it tonight, but we pushed through it and thank God that we’re we’re here to get this fight.”
David Benavidez has defeated Oleksandr Gvozdyk by a unanimous decision. Scores were 116-112, 117-111 and 119-109. A solid light heavyweight debut for the Phoenix native known as the Mexican Monster.
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David Benavidez and Oleksandr Gvozdyk are into the seventh round of the scheduled 12-round fight. It’s a complete shutout for Benavidez on our card. Gvozdyk, a 2012 Olympic bronze medalist who ended Adonis Stevenson’s lengthy title reign at 175lbs back in 2018, is past his best at 37 years old and being served up to a younger, primer opponent.
Shortly after this fight ends, Davis and Martin will make their entrances for the main event.
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Tale of the tape
Here’s how the fighters measure up ahead of tonight’s main event. Both Davis and Martin came in safely under the lightweight division limit of 135lbs. Martin will enjoy a two-and-a-half-inch height advantage, though the squat Davis is accustomed to being the smaller man.
It’s been 14 months since Davis last fought. One of the reasons for the layoff involves last year’s guilty plea to charges stemming from a hit-and-run crash that left four people hospitalized, including a pregnant woman. Davis was sentenced to 90 days of home detention at the home of his trainer.
A judge ruled in June that Davis violated the terms of his house arrest after he moved to a luxury hotel and then a new home, but he was released from a Baltimore jail in July after 44 days at a detention center.
Now the 29-year-old southpaw, one of America’s most prodigious athletes and an unrepentant batterer of women whose history of gender-based violence is well-documented, is ready to get his career back on track.
“I’ve been locked in for a long time now,” Davis said. “My give-back is going to be a great performance on Saturday night.”
Alberto Puello has just upset Gary Antuanne Russell by a split decision. One judge scored it 118-109 for Russell but while the other two handed down cards of 115-112 and 114-113 for Puello, who has handed Russell his first loss in 18 professional fights.
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Preamble
Hello and welcome to tonight’s WBA lightweight championship fight between Gervonta Davis and Frank Martin. The popular Davis, a Baltimore native unbeaten in 29 professional fights, is back in action for the first time since last year’s seventh-round knockout of Ryan Garcia, which appeared to confer his status as the face of American boxing. He will be defending his title at 135lbs against Martin, an undefeated challenger from Indianapolis.
Most boxing fans would rather see Davis in with the other stars at or around his weight class like Devin Haney or Shakur Stevenson. Those fights may happen, but for now we’ll settle for Martin, who has done nothing but defeat the names in front of him while building a record of 18-0 with 12 knockouts.
One bout of note on the undercard is a title fight scheduled for 12 rounds between David Benavidez and Oleksandr Gvozdyk for the vacant WBC interim light heavyweight strap. That should be under way in the next 15 minutes or so. Then it will be time for the main event.
Plenty more to come.
Bryan will be here shortly. In the meantime here’s a look at Friday’s eventful weigh-in.
