By Leobert Julian A. de la Peña
Gervonta “Tank” Davis had a message to those who doubted if he could carry his power after moving up to 140 pounds.
“Now, you saw it. You saw it right,” he said.
In a packed State Farm Arena where fans flocked to see another blockbuster boxing showdown, Baltimore’s pride Davis delivered another spectacular performance and dethroned Mario “El Azteca” Barrios via knockout to clinch the WBA super lightweight championship belt.
Moving up 10 lbs. higher than his usual weight class, height and reach were never an issue as the surging Davis boxed toe-to-toe against the larger Barrios in the early rounds of the fight.
Barrios seemed to look good starting round three as the champion maintained his distance and threw jab after jab as Davis targeted to go inside his favored range.
As the bell ticked starting round six, Davis picked his pace up and gunned for an aggressive offense to finally find his range to hit Barrios.
Two rounds after Davis’ gear switch, Barrios’ worst nightmare came after getting floored twice in the eighth round.
Davis first hit Barrios clean with a sweeping right hook and later on scored another knockdown with a follow-up leftie hook with 1:50 left.
Barrios would retaliate in the ninth after rocking Davis with a left to the face but it was the last clean offensive moment that he would have in the fight.
The 26-year-old power-puncher then ended the night with a devastating body shot followed by another hook to the face and was hailed as the new WBA super lightweight king.
