WBA lightweight champion Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis (30-0-1, 28 KOs) was arguably saved by the judges with them ruling his headliner fight against Lamont Roach (25-1-2, 10 KOs) a 12 round majority draw on Saturday night at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. The crowd, which Tank initially had eating out of his hand, booed him after the fight when he was making excuses for his poor performance.
In the ninth, Tank went down in a delayed reaction to a right hand from Roach, but the referee ruled it wasn’t a knockdown. The replays showed that it was. If the ref hadn’t blown the call, Roach would have won.
The judges scored it 115-113 for Tank, 114-114 and 114-114. Boxing 247 had it for Roach 116-112 [8-4].
“I made it tough,” said Gervonta when asked why Roach had done so well against him after the fight.
Undercard Results
Gary Antuanne Russell (18-1, 17 KOs) was too good tonight, beating WBA light welterweight champion Jose ‘Rayo’ Valenzuela (14-3, 9 KOs) by a 12 round unanimous decision. Russell pressed the action the entire fight, nailing Valenzeula with hard shots, and making him pay with counters whenever he’d land. In rounds 11 and 12, Rayo came back to land some tremendous shots that snapped Russell’s head back, knocking him off balance. Somehow, he took the punches and kept fighting back, albeit with slightly less aggression. The scores were 119-109, 119-109 and 120-108.
Alberto Puello (24-0, 10 KOs) held onto his WBC light welterweight title, winning a 12 round split decision against mandatory Sandor Martin (42-4, 15 KOs). The judges scored it 115-113 for Martin, 115-113, and 116-112 for Puello. Martin was the busier fighter of the two, pushing the fight, attacking Puello’s body with speedy combinations. Puello did a lot of holding, which made it hard to give him more than one or two rounds. The judges overlooked the holding.
Junior middleweight Yoenis Tellez (10-0, 7 KOs) defeated former IBF/WBA 154-lb champion Julian J-Rock’ Williams (29-5-1, 17 KOs) by a 12-round unanimous decision to win the WBA interim 154-lb belt in the first fight of the PPV portion of tonight’s card. Tellez, 24, snapping Williams’ head back with uppercuts early on, and landing powerful bodyshots that had him looking shaky.
J-Rock had his moments in each round, landing hard punches, but he wasn’t consistent enough to take advantage of the Cuban Tellez’s youth and inexperience. In the ninth, J-Rock’s left eye was cut by a hard right hand from Tellez. That kind of woke Williams up, as he fought hard in rounds nine through eleven. Again, he didn’t throw enough. The judges’ scores were 118-110, 117-111, and 119-109.
Middleweight Johan Gonzalez (36-4, 34 KOs) may have put the final nail in the coffin of the career of former IBF and IBO 154-lb champion Jarrett Hurd (25-4-1, 17 KOs), beating him by a 10 round split decision. The fight looked like a near shutout for Gonzalez, but one judge surprisingly gave it to the 34-year-old Hurd.
After the bout, Hurd announced his retirement: “This is the last time you’ll see me. Thanks for the support. I had a wonderful career.”
The scores
96-94: Gonzalez
96-94: Hurd
98-92: Gonzalez
