Gervonta Davis won’t be kissing a certain Saudi ring anytime soon

NEW YORK – Gervonta “Tank” Davis has observed the exodus of pound-for-pound peers to Saudi Arabia and firmly stood his ground in the U.S.

Davis watched as rival and four-division champion Terence Crawford became the first to headline an American card in August.

He saw the sport’s most popular fighter, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, shrug off Turki Alalshikh’s boast that a UFC bout he was backing in September would “bury” the Mexican star’s Las Vegas card, only to be in business with him five months later.

And he looked on as David Benavidez boarded a flight to attend Saturday’s light heavyweight championship bout in Riyadh.

On Saturday night in Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, Baltimore’s WBA lightweight titleholder Davis, 30-0 (28 KOs), is content producing the most lucrative live boxing gate in the NBA arena since he set the record there himself three years ago.

His fight against WBA belt holder Lamont Roach Jnr, 25-1-1 (10 KOs), will top a Premier Boxing Champions triple-title-fight pay-per-view card (Prime Video, PPV.COM) and is expected to leave the favored Davis, 30, strongly positioned to meet the likes of Vasiliy Lomachenko, Shakur Stevenson and Ryan Garcia in blockbuster bouts in the years to come.

Judging by what Davis told assembled reporters Thursday at his bout’s final news conference, don’t expect those fights to take place in the Middle East.

Davis watched intently Saturday during the loaded Saudi Arabia-based card of seven 12-round fights that included Carlos Adames, the WBC middleweight titleholder and Davis’ PBC promotional mate, barely retaining his title by a dubiously scored draw against England’s Hamzah Sheeraz.

At one point, Alalshikh, the Saudi financier who has emerged as an elite power broker in the sport, rose from his seat during the Adames-Sheeraz bout and bypassed regulators to hold up two fingers while standing behind the corner of Alalshikh’s Riyadh Season ambassador Sheeraz, apparently signaling that he would need a knockout to win.

Davis raised his own suspicions Thursday, echoing the thoughts of some others who viewed footage of the incident: “You guys saw the guy [Alalshikh] looked at the scorecards.”

Yet Davis said the sequence vindicated his decision to avoid negotiations with the Saudis.

“They were saying, ‘Man, we gotta get Tank over here’” for a bout against Davis’ fellow three-division and lightweight titleholder Shakur Stevenson, who defeated a replacement fighter on the Saturday card to defend his WBC belt.

“Man, I already know what you’re going to do,” Davis said.

Davis was surprised to learn Thursday that Alvarez has now agreed to fight three times in Saudi Arabia, including vacating his traditional next two Cinco de Mayo cards in Las Vegas, as part of a four-fight deal with Alalshikh that will include a September bout in the U.S. against Crawford.

Also, PBC’s unbeaten light heavyweight David Benavidez, after saying that he wants to remain fighting in the U.S. following his February 1 unanimous decision triumph over David Morrell Jnr in Las Vegas, watched the Riyadh card in person Saturday and met with Alalshikh, who urged PBC founder Al Haymon to permit Benavidez to fight for the light heavyweight belt in the future.

In November, American promoter Oscar De La Hoya, of Golden Boy Promotions, took a “Latino Night” card that otherwise could have sold out arenas in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Phoenix or San Antonio and placed it in Saudi Arabia.

The dearth of major U.S. fights has been telling, and following Davis’ bout on Saturday, there’s not another U.S.-based pay-per-view on the books.

While he appreciates the power of money, Davis said he remains surprised how breaking the bank entitles Alalshikh to have so many in the sport drawn to kiss his ring, indicating that he’s reluctant to fight in Saudi Arabia.

If that makes Davis the last American hero keeping major boxing in the U.S., he’ll accept the role at this point.

“Not all money’s good money,” Davis said. “No, nah.

“I just don’t like how this guy [Alalshikh] comes in the game and he doesn’t know [anything] about the sport. Nothing.”

To boost Saudi tourism by making the nation a boxing destination, Alalshikh has invited many legends, such as Roberto Duran, and created several major bouts, but he has also drawn criticism by suggesting or making matches with wide weight disparities, such as Alvarez-Crawford.

Now, in addition to backing a WBC league for young fighters, Alalshikh is believed to be backing another league concept that should be revealed soon.

“Everyone’s going over there,” Davis said. “He keeps saying, ‘I’m going to do this, I’m going to do that.’ You don’t know nothing about the sport. How you going to do that?”

Lance Pugmire is BoxingScene’s senior U.S. writer and an assistant producer for ProBox TV. Pugmire has covered boxing since the early 2000s, first at the Los Angeles Times and then at The Athletic and USA Today. He won the Boxing Writers’ Association of America’s Nat Fleischer Award in 2022 for career excellence.