dismissed on Aug. 12<\/a>, it paved the way to reignite talks for Davis vs. Roach 2. It would have been a meaningful fight for the 135-pound landscape, and the sport in general.<\/p>\nInstead, we have a fight that very few asked for, on one of the grandest stages imaginable, as Netflix readies to air the event from State Farm Arena in Atlanta to a significant global audience.<\/p>\n
Boxing has had crossover fights before.<\/p>\n
Notably, in 2017, there was boxing royalty Floyd Mayweather Jr. against Conor McGregor, the former two-weight UFC champion. But this didn\u2019t actually take anything away from the sport. It didn\u2019t hold up a division. Mayweather wasn’t a titleholder at the time. All it did was provide boxing with another date.<\/p>\n
Paul has taken part in these kinds of events before, too, when he took on Nate Robinson on the undercard of Mike Tyson\u2019s exhibition with Roy Jones Jr. during the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic. That show, like Mayweather vs. McGregor, didn\u2019t hold the sport up. Again, it provided a date in the calendar when boxing was in desperate need of one due to lockdowns, and the subsequent shuttering of sports.<\/p>\n
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There is a holdup this time, though.<\/p>\n
Davis is the WBA lightweight champion. He\u2019s denied Roach, who arguably already deserved a win against him earlier this year. And he\u2019s denied other fighters in the WBA rankings, like the No. 1-ranked contender Floyd Schofield. He\u2019s even denied a box-office unification with WBC ruler Shakur Stevenson \u2014 a fight that fans have demanded for years.<\/p>\n
Paul, too, could have more meaningful matchups if he wanted.<\/p>\n
In his latest bout, he out-pointed the former middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. on June 28 in Anaheim \u2014 the same Southern California card in which Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez defeated Yuniel Doricos. Ramirez\u2019s promoter, Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy Promotions, even said a fight between his cruiserweight boxer and Paul was \u201crealistic.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The bout would have provided Paul with legitimacy in boxing, if he does indeed crave that. But an injury Ramirez sustained from that fight, and a subsequent shoulder surgery, curtailed it from being discussed for the time being. An Anthony Joshua fight was also entertained by the heavyweight\u2019s representative Eddie Hearn, and Paul had been linked to IBF cruiserweight champion Jai Opetaia as well.<\/p>\n
Instead, we get a fight announcement designed for content, clicks and reach \u2014 one that shows it\u2019s the sport of boxing all along, not the UFC, that was prime for WWE treatment.<\/p>\n
And, do you want to know the sickest part?<\/p>\n
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I like it.<\/p>\n
Yes, boxing traditionalists will loathe it. I\u2019m not one of them.<\/p>\n
Yes, this matchup delays far more meaningful fights, and it blurs the sport\u2019s integrity.<\/p>\n
But spectacle is a power in and of itself. This keeps boxing in the news cycle, and pushes Davis into a more mainstream audience than he\u2019s ever been exposed to before. With the right kind of promotion and shoulder-programming, “Tank” can tap into an audience that he can leverage should he unify his WBA title with Stevenson\u2019s WBC belt, next year. The exhibition also keeps Paul on the right track. Perhaps the plan is to challenge Ramirez for his WBC cruiserweight crown next year, too. Even an exhibition with Davis, in what would only be Paul’s 15th boxing event (13 professional fights), is a marked step up than anything the internet content creator has done before.<\/p>\n
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As much as it may sting purists, this is a money-spinner and an attention-grabber. And it\u2019s already grabbed mine \u2014 because, love it or loathe it, Paul vs. Davis isn\u2019t just an exhibition. It\u2019s a spectacle \u2014 and the clearest mirror yet of where boxing stands. In 2025, boxing\u2019s biggest fights aren\u2019t for championship titles \u2014 they\u2019re for cultural relevance.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source sports.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Boxers of yesteryear used to dream of seeing their name across one of the oversized billboards that decorate the length of Las Vegas Boulevard, otherwise known as The Strip. Today, the neon dims but the names Jake Paul and Gervonta Davis are still legible. Advertisement Their announcement to box on Nov. 14, which Paul confirmed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1971718,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[350919,350922,350532,350917,349215,350918,350921,350920,350923],"class_list":["post-1971717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-boxing-event","tag-combat-sport","tag-floyd-mayweather-jr","tag-gervonta-davis","tag-jake-paul","tag-lamont-roach-jr","tag-roach","tag-tank","tag-ufc"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Jake-Paul-vs-Gervonta-Tank-Davis-shows-where-boxing-ends.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1971717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1971717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1971717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1971718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1971717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1971717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1971717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}