Sources: Tank Davis-Jake Paul exhibition in works until Roach draw
Lightweight titlist instead invokes rematch right, June sequel planned; details in story, including PPV total for controversial Tank-Roach bout
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WBA lightweight titlist Gervonta “Tank” Davis and Lamont Roach Jr. are headed to an immediate rematch following their controversial majority draw on March 1, but had Davis won his next ring assignment was likely to have been an exhibition bout against Jake Paul, multiple sources involved in the now-dissolved talks told Fight Freaks Unite.
The Davis side broke off discussions following the draw with WBA junior lightweight titlist Roach because Davis elected to invoke his contractual right to an immediate rematch in the event of a loss or a draw.
Sources told Fight Freaks Unite that the PBC on Prime Video pay-per-view rematch is being planned for either June 21 at T-Mobile Area in Las Vegas or June 28 in either Atlanta or Miami. TGB Promotions has a request for June 21 for a pay-per-view event at T-Mobile Arena on the agenda for the Nevada State Athletic Commission’s monthly meeting scheduled for Tuesday, although the request does not specify a specific bout.
Any notion of placing the regional rivalry rematch at Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C., which is Roach’s hometown and where Davis, who is from nearby Baltimore, is immensely popular and set the building’s all-time gate record north of $5 million for a January 2023 title defense against Hector Luis Garcia, is out the window. That is because the building, which is home to the NBA’s Washington Wizards, NHL’s Washington Capitals and the Georgetown men’s college basketball team, is not available. It will be closed for the summer while undergoing part of an $800 million renovation.
When Paul, the social media influencer and popular YouTube personality turned novice boxer, showed up at ringside at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, to watch Davis make his sixth title defense against Roach it was not just because he is a fight fan.
He was there on business. He wanted to get an up close look at Davis because their camps were already in discussions for a summer exhibition that would have matched the two most popular American boxers — pending a Davis victory, the sources said.
Read on for more details and the Davis-Roach PPV total
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That was despite Davis holding a world title at 135 pounds and having had one fight in the 140-pound division four years ago and Paul having fought all of his bouts in the 200-pound cruiserweight division except for his last bout. That was in November, when he weighed 227¼ pounds and won a lopsided eight-round decision in an official bout with former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson in a blockbuster Netflix event.
Even with a wide weight gap exhibitions under those circumstances are approvable by commissions. For example, Floyd Mayweather weighed 155 pounds when he faced Logan Paul, Jake’s older brother, in a 2021 exhibition in Miami for which Paul weighted 189½ pounds.
According to one of the sources, the idea for Davis-Paul came about in the wake of talks for an official May 3 cruiserweight fight between unified super middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez and Paul falling apart in February.
They reached an impasse over whether to have the fight as a pay-per-view event, which is what Alvarez wanted, or to have it live on Netflix for subscribers, which is what the Paul camp was pushing for.
Ultimately, Alvarez walked away from Paul and accepted a four-fight offer from Saudi Arabia’s Turki Alalshikh. That deal will commence with a unification fight for the undisputed 168-pound title against William Scull in a pay-per-view main event on May 3 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, followed by a showdown with Terence Crawford in September provided he beats Scull.
The Alvarez-Paul talks were being conducted by Nakisa Bidarian, the co-founder with Paul of Most Valuable Promotions, and Al Haymon’s team at Premier Boxing Champions, which was working with Alvarez on a fight-by-fight basis.
According to sources, MVP and PBC had gotten on well during the discussions for Alvarez-Paul, so when the fight fell apart they discussed potential alternatives for Paul when Alvarez went in another direction. Davis, who is by far PBC’s biggest star with Alvarez leaving, was the obvious choice.
But after Davis had such a controversial draw with Roach, an immediate rematch took precedence over going forward with a Paul exhibition.
The controversy stemmed from a sequence that began with 2 minutes, 17 seconds remaining in the ninth round when referee Steve Willis failed to call Roach’s knockdown of Davis, which cost him a 10-8 round. That turned out to be the difference between a Roach unanimous decision win and a draw. Adding to the controversy was that the New York State Athletic Commission’s replay official was unable to enact instant replay to view the knockdown within the prescribed time limit due to what the commission said was “a technical issue” receiving the replay from the production truck.
Roach fired a right hand followed by two left jabs, the second of which appeared to connect with Davis’ eye. Davis (30-0-1, 28 KOs), 30, a southpaw, immediately turned away and took a knee for what appeared to be a textbook knockdown. Willis initially ruled a knockdown, sent Roach (25-1-2, 10 KOs), 29, to a neutral corner, picked up the count from the timekeeper and began to administer the mandatory eight-count.
As Willis was counting, Davis rushed to his corner, where Calvin Ford, one of his trainers, came up the ring steps — a rules violation that is grounds for a point deduction or disqualification — and, at Davis’ request, wiped down his face with a white towel, another blatant rules violation that also could have resulted in a point deduction or disqualification.
Davis claimed he got hair product in his eye and essentially took a timeout, which also is not allowed. Nonetheless, Willis abandoned the count and re-stared the fight. Had he officially ruled the knockdown the judges would have been compelled to score the round 10-8 in favor of Roach based on the scoring guidelines of the Association of Boxing Commissions, and that would have been enough for him to win the fight.
Roach’s team filed a protest, citing a variety issues, and sought to have the commission change the draw — 114-114, 114-114 and 115-113 for Davis — to a Roach victory. While the commission acknowledged Willis made an error it declined to change the result because it said it had no way of knowing how the final three rounds would have played out had the knockdown been ruled and the fighters altered their approach after that.
Tank-Roach PPV numbers
The Davis-Roach PBC on Prime Video pay-per-view generated at least 260,000 buys, sources with knowledge of the total told Fight Freaks Unite, with one source pinpointing it at 262,000.
With the cost of the event being $79.95 it grossed $21 million in pay-per-view revenue across all platforms in the United States, where the card was available via Prime Video and PPV.COM as well as traditional linear television pay-per-view.
The PPV revenue is in addition the fight drawing a crowd of 19,250 to set the Barclays Center attendance record for any event in its 13-year history and generating the building’s second-largest gate of nearly $7 million, which was topped only by a Rolling Stones concert.
The Davis-Roach pay-per-view total makes it the fourth-best performance of the eight PPV events Davis has headlined.
Here are the numbers for Davis’ seven other pay-per-views, according to sources, in chronological order:
June 15, 2024: Frank Martin, between 325,000 and 350,000 (at MGM Grand Garden Arena, Las Vegas)
April 22, 2023: Ryan Garcia, 1.2 million (at T-Mobile Arena, Las Vegas; $22.8 million gate was fifth-largest in Nevada history)
Jan. 7, 2023: Hector Luis Garcia, between 200,000 and 215,000 (at Capital One Arena, Washington, D.C.)
May 28, 2022: Rolando Romero, 275,000 (at Barclays Center, Brooklyn, New York)
Dec. 5, 2021: Isaac Cruz, slightly over 200,000 (at Staples Center, Los Angeles)
June 26, 2021: Mario Barrios, between 210,000 and 215,000 (at State Farm Arena, Atlanta)
Oct. 31, 2020: Leo Santa Cruz, between 200,000 and 225,000 (at Alamodome, San Antonio)
Note: The first six were produced and distributed by Showtime PPV, the last two were produced by PBC and distributed by Prime Video.
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Good ppv numbers the rematch will do even more
THIS JUST IN!:
Jake Paul is negotiating with CP Knockout Freshmarts’s team to do a fight at a catch weight of 195 lbs. The fight will be ten 1:30 rounds using 45 ounce gloves, which will favor Paul as the gloves with be approximately the same size as Freshmart.