Gervonta Davis scheduled to defend his lightweight belt against Frank Martin
It has been confirmed to The Ring that Gervonta Davis will defend his WBA lightweight title against Frank Martin in late spring/early summer on Amazon Prime, headlining a Premier Boxing Champions event on Pay-Per-View.
Davis hasn’t fought since his win over Ryan Garcia in a mega-event last April. The Baltimore native served 44 days in a detention center in June having violated terms to his 90-day house arrest at the home of his long-time trainer Calvin Ford. Davis had pled guilty to taking part in a car accident involving four people in November 2020.
Since his release, he has been linked to several possible fights, including a recent offer from Eddie Hearn to move up to welterweight and face Conor Benn. That always looked a stretch for Tank, who has long fought on the PBC umbrella.
Meanwhile, Martin was riding the crest of a wave and primed to face Shakur Stevenson last fall for the vacant WBC 135-pound belt. However, at the last minute he backed away from the deal and hasn’t fought since. While it was startling at the time, it always looked as though PBC had something up their sleeve for Martin, and a fight with Davis apparently made the most sense.
Davis (29-0, 27 knockouts), rated at No. 2 by The Ring at lightweight, impressively took the IBF 130-pound title from Jose Pedraza (TKO 7) in 2017. Since then, his star has risen and he is one of the most popular attractions in America, regularly selling out arenas across the country and performing on Showtime Pay-Per-View.
The 29-year-old owns a highlight-reel knockout over Leo Santa Cruz (KO 6) and showed that his vaunted power carries up in weight when he came on strong to stop the much larger Mario Barrios (TKO 11) at 140 pounds. More recently, he stopped WBA 130-pound titlist Hector Luis Garcia (TKO 9) and then dismantled Ryan Garcia (KO 7) in a fight that garnered 1.2 million PPVs.
Martin (18-0, 12 KOs), rated at No. 6 by The Ring at lightweight, won his first 11 fights and started working with then-unified welterweight titlist Errol Spence Jr. and his trainer Derrick James. The leg-up has benefited Martin, who has gone from strength to strength, taking the unbeaten record of Jerry Perez (KO 7), stopping one-time contender Romero Duno (TKO 4) and Jackson Marinez (TKO 10).
He was hugely impressive dominating Michel Rivera (UD 12) in a match up of unbeaten prospects. The 29-year-old southpaw had a harder time than expected and had to come on late to edge out Artem Harutyunyan (UD 12) last July.
Questions and/or comments can be sent to Anson at [email protected].
