Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis will be defending his WBA lightweight title in Houston against Lamont Roach Jr. on PBC on Prime Video PPV on December 14th.
Dan Rafael reports that Davis vs. Roach is heading towards Houston, Texas, where Gervonta spends a lot of time. No word on who the co-feature bout will be, but it’s going to need a good fight to motivate fans to pay $75.95 to order the event on Prime Video PPV.
For that price, the event won’t sell without a great co-feature and undercard because fans are not interested in paying to watch Tank Davis defend against a fighter pulled up from the super featherweight division. Gervonta vs. Roach won’t sell in Houston without a great fight on the undercard.
That’s what fans paid last time for Tank’s title defense against Frank Martin with David Benavidez vs. Oleksandr Gvozdy on the undercard.
WBC interim light heavyweight champion Benavidez has been mentioned recently as possibly fighting Jesse Hart on the Tank Davis undercard in December, but that hasn’t been confirmed. Benavidez’s promoter, Sampson Lewkowicz, couldn’t reveal anything this week about his next fight.
Tank reportedly had the option of defending his WBA lightweight title against #3 ranked contender Edwin De Los Santos, but chose super featherweight Lamont Roach instead. One can draw their own conclusion about why Tank wanted the finesse fighter Roach instead of the dangerous puncher De Los Santos.
It’s not surprising that the Tank-Roach fight is being shown on PPV because Tank’s fights are pay-per-view, but it’s still a disappointment that his management at Premier Boxing Champions picked this opponent.
The WBA has given Lamont Roach special permission to temporarily freeze his super featherweight title and move up to lightweight to challenge Gervonta for his belt.
If Roach wins, he has five days to decide whether to keep the lightweight title or move back down to 130 to defend his super featherweight belt with that organization.
