Davis grinds out unanimous decision over Cruz in action-packed lightweight fight
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Gervonta “Tank” Davis got the toughest fight of his career from Isaac Cruz, but scraped past him in an all-action battle that headlined a Showtime PPV card on Sunday night at Staples Center in Los Angeles.
Davis won via unanimous decision, 116-112, 115-113 and 115-113, to retain his WBA secondary lightweight belt for the second time in a fight that was close enough that it easily could have gone the other way or been a draw.
The 5-foot-5½ Davis said before the fight that he did not like fighting shorter fighters and Cruz, generously listed at 5-4, showed the reason why.
He gave Davis fits throughout the bout, although Davis, a southpaw, also injured his left hand midway through the fight and had to rely primarily on his right.
“He’s a shorter fighter, so I was throwing down on the top of his head. I hit him with my knuckle and messed it up,” Davis said. “I hurt my hand in the sixth round. No matter if the opponent is taller or shorter, I’ve got to get through it. He’s a warrior. Even though he didn’t win, a star was born tonight.”
Asked if his hand was broken, Davis was unsure. “I don’t know. I gotta get the hand checked out. It is what it is. That’s what comes with this sport.”
Floyd Mayweather protégé Davis (26-0, 24 KOs), 27, of Baltimore, saw his 16-fight knockout streak come to an end. He had not been forced to go the distance since his eighth fight, which was a six-round decision over German Meraz in October 2014.
Davis was returning to the 135-pound division following a move up to junior welterweight for his previous fight, when he knocked out the much taller Mario Barrios in the 11th round to win a secondary belt in an exciting fight on June 26.
It was another exciting fight with Cruz, whose nickname “Pitbull” fit him to a tee as he aggressively went after Davis, especially to the body, throughout the bout.
The announced crowd of 15,850 largely booed the decision, which the Manny Pacquiao-promoted Cruz (22-2-1, 15 KOs), 23, of Mexico, took to heart.
“Viva Mexico. I have nothing to say. The fans are speaking on who won this fight,” Cruz said through a translator. That’s my style. ‘Pitbull’ is always going to be on the attack. I think we retained rhythm from the start to the end. If the fans want to see a rematch, we’ll do it.”
Asked about the prospect of a rematch, Davis was succinct.
“Hell no,” he said.
Cruz, was unbeaten in his last 18 fights (17-0-1) since dropping an eight-round decision in 2016, had been scheduled to box on the undercard, but he accepted an offer to face Davis in the main event on a month’s notice when Rolando “Rolly” Romero was dropped from the fight due to a sexual assault allegation against him that Henderson, Nevada, which police are investigating.
Cruz easily won the opening round as Davis looked to see what he had in front of him before really getting going. Then he said the hand issue slowed him down.
“I’m not a fighter who just looks for the knockout. I knew he was strong and I was just warming up and seeing what he threw best,” Davis said. “At the beginning of the fight, he came on strong,” Davis said. “I felt as the fight was going he was breaking down. But I hurt my hand, so I wasn’t able to get him out of there.”
Despite the injury Davis still landed plenty of clean shots on Cruz to the head and body. He had a particularly big round in the fifth. He seemed to stun Cruz with a right hook in the eighth round but Cruz rallied late in the round to land a clean uppercut in the closing seconds.
Cruz closed the fight well, winning the final three rounds on six of the nine scorecards.
According to CompuBox statistics, Davis landed 133 of 462 punches (29 percent) and Cruz landed 121 of 553 (22 percent).
Davis, as the biggest draw in the deep lightweight division, has many big-fight possibilities if he and his Mayweather Promotions team want to pursue them.
Davis-Cruz was the third of four major fights in the weight class in less than a month. On Nov. 27, Australia’s George Kambosos Jr., who was ringside Sunday night, outpointed Teofimo Lopez Jr. in a tremendous action fight to win the unified and lineal world title. On Saturday night, Devin Haney outpointed Joseph Diaz Jr. in an entertaining bout to retain the WBC title. And this coming Saturday, former lightweight titleholders Vasiliy Lomachenko and Richard Commey, both beaten by Lopez in title bouts, will meet at Madison Square Garden in New York. There is also star attraction Ryan Garcia, who is currently sidelined by a hand injury.
“Whatever the best opportunity is for me, I’ll do it,” Davis said of future foes. “All of them guys are easy work. I’m the top dog.”
Showtime will replay the bout on Saturday (10 p.m. ET) along with live coverage of the card headlined by WBC bantamweight titlist Nonito Donaire’s defense against interim titlist Reymart Gaballo at the Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, California.
Undercard results
Junior middleweight Sebastian “Towering Inferno” Fundora (18-0-1, 12 KOs), 23, a southpaw from Coachella, California, outpointed former European champion Sergio Garcia (33-1, 14 KOs), 29, of Spain, in a dull, tactical fight that served as a WBC title eliminator. The 6-foot-5 Fundora won 118-110, 117-111 and 115-113.
“I was using my distance a lot more,” Fundora said. “I wanted to display something different than what I’m used to. (My) height was definitely a difference in this fight.”
Carlos Adames (21-1, 16 KOs), 27, of the Dominican Republic, who moved up from junior middleweight, won a majority decision over former three-time middleweight world title challenger Sergiy Derevyanchenko (13-4, 10 KOs), 36, a Brooklyn, New York-based Ukrainian, in a grueling action fight. Two judges had it 97-93 and 96-94 for Adames and one scored the fight 95-95.
“This means a lot for me in my career and this is a big accomplishment winning against a fighter of his caliber,” Adames said. “He got a bit tired as the fight went on, took a lot of hard shots from me and it was evident that I caused him a lot of damage.”
In a meeting of former featherweight title challengers, Eduardo Ramirez (26-2-3, 12 KOs), 28, a southpaw from Mexico, dominated Miguel Marriaga (30-5, 26 KOs), 35, of Colombia, in a hard-hitting, but lopsided decision. Ramirez dropped Marriaga in the third round and won the junior lightweight bout 99-90 on all three scorecards.
Photos: Esther Lin/Showtime
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There’s still talent and time. But I’m just disappointed at this point with all “4 Princes” at Lightweight. Tank went life and death with a tough but limited Cruz. And likely now, no real dangerous fights anytime soon. Haney is talented, but his lack of power is glaring. Teofimo and Ryan have a lot of issues swirling outside of the ring. Lomachenko may still be the Lightweight by default at this point. I think Kambosas is more Buster Douglass than Bernard Hopkins (an older spoiler).
Great fight to watch, its time the top dogs in this division fought each other so we can have a fighter who is unarguably the No.1 Lightweight and thus the World Lightweight Champion. Out of handful of fighters with valid claims to be the no.1 Lightweight ,the only fighter operating at lightweight who looks like the full package is Vasilly Lomachenko and his only issue appears to be his natural lack of size. He looked so much smaller when fighting against Teofiimo Lopez, better skill can carry you far but eventually if your opponent has enough size advantage its a bridge too far.