Ryan García vs. Emmanuel Tagoe & Gabriel Daniel Rosado vs. Shane Donte Mosley, Jr. RBR

José Pedraza — a capable, tough, defensively responsible guy who's held his own from 130 through 135 and up to 140 lbs and had his mitts on titles in two of those three divisions — isn't worthwhile? He may be a B fighter and paper titlist (like most titlists), but he certainly qualifies as worthwhile.

Tank is the only guy to stop Pedraza, who has fought big punchers (Chon Zepeda) and guys who apply a lot of offensive pressure (Lomachenko, José Ramírez).

It's one thing to be underwhelmed by stoppages over the Hugo Ruizs and Liam Walshes of the world, or flattening KOs of blown-up super bantams like Léo, but you can't just ignore Pedraza as if bombing him out inside seven rounds doesn't represent some legitimate evidence of serious punching power.

Granted, it's been a while since Tank chopped Pedraza down, but the guy just hit his physical prime in the last year or so, his pop hasn't gone anywhere. If Haney does have issues with punch resistance, Davis is a dangerous man to put him in with.

I don't generally care to go to bat for Tank, but you're talking out your keister.

That was your first mistake.

A bum isn't a guy who loses on occasion. A bum is a guy who comes to a fight happy/prepared to lose, who has no ambition or belief that he can win.

 

Don't get me wrong, I think that is probably his best victory, which is part of the problem really.

2017 he beats Pedraza, 2018 he beats Cuellar. Two pretty decent victories in context of the division. But then he quickly outgrew it, fair enough.

But a LW resume of Gamboa, Santa Cruz and Cruz isn't very inspiring. Stopping Pedraza at SFW isn't enough to convince me of his vaunted power. It certainly isn't enough to convince me he knocks out Haney who has never been knocked out.

But that's the beauty of the sport isn't it. Hopefully we get to see the fights, but the way Davis gets match made I am not that confident we ever will.

 

I don't disagree.

Knowing what we know about Pedraza (I described him above), it's significant evidence that Tank can bang. That means, if Haney has chin issues, it's a very real possibility that Tank's explosiveness could at some point exploit them.

Well, Lee Selby hadn't been knocked out until fifteen days or so ago. That didn't make me any less confident that Gustavo Lemos would end that record (and I backed it with £2,000 out of my pocket, not just words on a forum). Devin hasn't exactly been dealing with a murderers' row himself, there isn't a string of prime punchers or offensive whirlwinds on his record by which to afford him particular credit for not having been knocked out. But he has shown some vulnerability in response to a good shot from a lesser puncher than Tank.

I'm not saying Tank absolutely has his number. I hadn't really cared to give the fight any thought up until this thread. But he certainly would represent a big threat to a guy who was hiding a suspect chin.

Davis is apparently stepping out from behind Floyd's apron strings and leaving Mayweather Promotions after Rolly, so there's some hope.

 

That's it all in a nutshell. If we all knew what would happen every time we'd be rich.

 

I don’t think much of that Pedraza stoppage, he had clearly overstayed his welcome at 130. He was putting it on Davis and then hit a wall from the weight cut, he was a sitting duck at the end of that fight. He was also ready to continue, the ref stopped it because he looked so sluggish and wasn’t throwing punches before he was knocked down. Pedraza is really a natural 140lb fighter.
The best evidence of Davis’s power is the Barrios fight. That power would certainly be enough to dispose of Haney.

 

JoJo rocked him. Do you think Tank hits harder than JoJo at least?
I don’t blame Davis for the matchmaking, that was Floyd’s jealous ass trying to keep him wrapped up in cotton wool. Floyd announces an exhibition match on the day of the Rolly press conference, and if you ever watched a Tank press conference you could see how Floyd wanted the limelight and always kept Tank quiet.
Tank is free now, we will get to see how good he is or isn’t.

 

I'd have given the titlist a chance in the ref's shoes, but the distinct probability is that he was only going out for more beating, judging by the shape he was in (that would go double if he had, as you suggest, badly drained himself and hit the wall).

No fighter comes in at 100%, I'm not going to speculate as to the extent that Pedraza was weakened by a weight limit he'd been making (it's not like he'd left the division and had to come back, a la Pacquiao-Morales II). For me, the T/KO of Pedraza stands as authentic evidence that Tank can punch.

 

Yeah for sure I agree it was a good stoppage, my point was more that it wouldn’t have been stopped if he was more energetic. So that’s more of a lack on Pedraza’s part rather than positive evidence of Tank’s power.

I think the fact he looked so drained and sluggish, immediately moved up afterwards and looked a lot better and a lot more durable, and is now able to slug it out comfortably with Ramirez at 140 is fairly conclusive evidence that he was fighting in a greatly weakened state at 130 at that point in time. Keep in mind that Pedraza was fighting at a heavier weight than 130 as an amateur ten years earlier than the Davis fight.

 

Hurtful punches can take energy from a man. He fell heavily. I would've sent him out, because I believe that a titlist deserves a chance if he responds in the affirmative (unless he's really all over the place), but he would've been knocked out in the 8th if he'd survived what was left of the 7th.

It's been the case with many pros (fighting significantly lighter than their amateur weight for years after turning pro).

I favor Pedraza as evidence of Davis' power on the basis of his proven toughness and solid quality, whereas I look at Barrios as a lesser boxer than Pedraza who was more reliant on his size and toughness than Pedraza generally is. They're both fair examples, though, so far as I'm concerned.

 

Do you remember when Cotto used to get rocked often when he was drained at lighter weights? That severe weight draining is part of the Puerto Rican boxing culture. Cotto looked a lot more sturdy and tougher when he moved up in weight, so we can’t really look at those opponents at the higher weights and in hindsight say that those who rocked him at lighter weights were actually super punchers.

Have a look at the Davis stoppage, Pedraza was actually hurt by a right to the solar plexus that led to the knockdown. The commentators missed it, and that opened up Pedraza’s head. He was protecting his body and took a lot of shots to the head before the right hook that put him down. Then when Pedraza got up he was ready to fight. Also have a look at the Lomachenko knockdown. I don’t think any of us think that Lomachenko is a devastating puncher, and look at Pedraza after he gets up from that knockdown. He gets up at exactly the same time as the Davis knockdown and looks exactly the same as in the Davis fight when responding to the ref. It is largely arbitrary whether the ref stops it or not, one felt like it and the other didn’t.

The only real difference is how Pedraza was prior to the knockdowns. Against Davis he wasn’t moving, he was sitting there and eating punches. Now look at how he was moving against Lomachenko just before that knockdown. You can see they are two different versions of Pedraza. Maybe he simply improved with the move up to 135, but you could see in the Davis that he moved less than he had in any fight before or since. Or maybe it was simply a foolish game plan where he thought he would stand and bang with Davis to beat him. Whatever it was it wasn’t the usual Pedraza that fight, or maybe Davis did something subtle skill wise I couldn’t see. Not punching power though

 

@Betyabeatyaup

I think Tank was a little more inclined to be wary of Barrios, due to him being an established 140 lber and likely stronger than anyone he'd faced before. That, for me, is the primary reason Barrios went into the late rounds. By contrast, Tank was more willing to mix it up with Pedraza from the early going. As much as/more than any other factors, I tend to think it was Tank landing very good punches from as early as the 1st round that had done Pedraza in by the middle of the fight. Pedraza is better defensively than Barrios, and around about as tough, but Tank showed Barrios greater respect from my memory of those encounters.

Haney is technical, defensively responsible. The question is whether Tank can land one of his bombs on the guy's head. Pedraza is a fair metric of that, because, while he isn't as stingy as Haney, he is technically solid and defensively responsible.

 

I just don't know what to make of Tank at LW yet.

5 years as a belt holder and not stepping up is very poor. At the same age Floyd had been lineal champ in 2 divisions and beaten P4P rated opposition.

 

It's a part of boxing culture in general. I'd venture that, say, 140 lb Ricardo Torres was a good puncher, one that Cotto was more inclined to take lightly with Torres coming in at late notice and being a not especially heralded guy at that time. 147 lb Shane Mosley, on the other hand, was a reputed puncher that Cotto had motivation to respect, which equals greater defensive awareness and a diminished element of surprise.

Cotto wasn't what I would call chinny, but he could be hurt by a good shot at any weight. Judah rocked him at 147, Floyd had him somewhat hurt late at 154.

So Davis opened up a defensively responsible guy and hit him hard enough to the head to bring about the end (which was coming, even if it was called a little prematurely).

Right, it's a judgement call. I don't disagree with that.

There are other real differences.

The heaviness of the shots Pedraza had eaten from Tank from early on compared to anything he'd been hit with by Lomachenko (although the Ukrainian's punch is a little underestimated in some quarters, Tank is obviously the bigger hitter). However anyone interpreted Davis-Pedraza in scorecard terms, Tank had been finding him with heavy shots to body and head since the 1st. That's going to be a factor in a guy slowing down.

I mean, I guess one could argue Pedraza's strategy (which you did go on to mention). He was quite bold with the upstart from the get-go, as I recall, though not in a flagrantly irresponsible way. He was cagier with Lomachenko, who brought a big reputation with him.


As I mentioned, Barrios is a fair example if that's the one you like more.

I tend to be more moved by how he dealt with Pedraza is all.

 

Yes, are you aware that Floyd has been holding him back from facing serious competition? Why do you think attention seeking Floyd might be doing that?

 

That's on tank.