Patient Gervonta Davis catches a ghost

WBA lightweight champion Gervonta “Tank” Davis (30-0, 28 KOs) scored a “play of the week” KO 8 against challenger Frank “The Ghost” Martin (18-1, 12 KOs). Martin outboxed Davis for the first half of the fight. Tank started to step on the gas in the middle rounds and then flattened Martin with an uppercut, left hand combination in round eight. The time was 1:29. The fight went as many predicted, with Martin boxing well early while Tank downloaded a counterattack. 

After the fight, Davis said “Martin is a great fighter but I can’t celebrate too much because it’s on to the next one. I can’t really celebrate until I retire.” Asked how he would do against Vasyl Lomachenko (a talked about matchup) Davis replied, “it’s ass-whipping time.” 

After the bout, Martin praised Davis as “a good fighter who can box and punch” but said he was disappointed he laid on the ropes too much and got caught because he “didn’t get to show his best.” 

Making his light heavyweight debut, unbeaten David “El Monstro” Benavidez (29-0, 24 KOs) scored a UD 12 over former world champion Oleksandr “The Nail” Gvozdyk (20-2, 16 KOs) for the WBC interim light heavyweight title. Despite appearing as the smaller man in the ring, Benavides took the fight to Gvozdyk and controlled much of the action. Scores were 116-112, 117-111, 119-109. After the fight Benavidez said that he injured his hand in camp and suffered a cut but that he was “ happy with the win” and was “looking forward to what is next in the division”.

Gvozdyk said he wished he had been more active in the early rounds of the fight but said, “I would “love a rematch with him.” 

Next up was an interesting clash between unbeaten super lightweights, former WBA champion Alberto Puello (23-0, 10 KOs) won an SD 12 over Gary Antuanne Russell (17-1, 17 KOs) to capture the vacant WBC interim 140-pound belt. Russell pressed, Puello countered, and in the end, it was 118-109 Russell, 115-112, 114-113 

WBC middleweight champion Carlos Adames (24-1,18 KOs) scored a workman-like UD 12 against Terrell Gausha (25-4-1, 12 KOs). The bout had a few warm spots but never really caught fire. Adames prevailed with scores of 119-109, 118-110, 118-110.

Undercard 

Kyrone Davis W10 Elijah Garcia (middleweight)

Mark Magsayo W10 Eduardo Ramirez (super featherweight)

Justin Viloria TKO5 Angel Contreras (super featherweight)