The night Gervonta Davis ruined a perfect career

This was Pedraza's most recent fight before facing Tank against Stephen Smith, one of the UK Smith family:

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This was Pedraza's fight against Tank:

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Against Smith (and his whole career up to and past the Tank fight), Pedraza was lanky pressure fighter who fought at range utilising his jab and straight right. He also outboxed opponents on the outside since he was a tall fighter for his weight and tall fighters tend to fight tall to get the best out of their physical advantages. He's called Sniper because he almost always fights at long range. Against Tank (the shortest fighter he's ever fought and who he could have easily keep on the end of his jab) though he's now suddenly a brawler who's trying to close distance with Tank and beat him up rather than outboxing him and leaving himself more exposed and in punching range against a guy known for his punching power. Pedraza changed his style in a way that would benefit Tank by fighting at his range, leaving himself open, and making himself susceptible to counters. Doesn't that seem a bit weird to anybody else?

 

Stop. Tank has clearly ducked the best available opposition in every division he has competed at.
Just happens that two of his wins aged well.

 

He has an excellent resume. Who cares about belts. He got names.

 

No I've explained this to you already. His resume has aged quite well, the problem he has is he's never once fought a guy ranked in the top two, in any division he's fought at.

He never fought Lomachenko, Herring or Berchelt at SFW.

He never fought Lomachenko, Lopez or Haney at LW.

He never fought Lopez, Henry or Matias at LW.

He's fought a bunch of lower ranked top ten guys who have stayed world level after he's fought them, but he's never once got in the ring with someone who's in the top 3 of the division.

Even now, the top 3 at LW are Loma, Davis and Shakur. Martin is probably ranked 5th , just like Pedraza and Garcia were, but he never fight someone who's actually perceived as one of the best in the world are the time.

 

The difference is me and Olu rate him that bit higher than you. We think he should be fighting at the elite level, not the lower end of the top ten level.

We wanted him to fight the likes of Loma, Herring, Berchelt at SFW, the likes of Loma, Haney, Shakur at LW, the likes of Lopez, Haney, Matias at LWW.

But he hasn't done that.

The belts are usually an indicator of who the best in the division is, someone who beats every other belt holder is without doubt the best in the division, we think Davis should be fighting at that level.

But that's ok, we rate him higher than you do.

 

Not really, fighters often change their game plans depending on who their opponent is.

 

Frank Martin is a decent opponent
No shade for this fight

Ryan Garcia was a good opponent
Too but asterisk * for the catch weight & rehydration clause.

I like tank a lot actually
Just wish he would step it up with out a-$ide antics. But same can be said about canelo & pretty soon Ryan Garcia
It’s the nature of the A-$ide boxing ego beadt.

 

There is a jarring difference between employing different gameplans for different fighters and changing a fighter's entire approach in a way designed to benefit their opponent. Most gameplans focus on honing a certain aspect of a fighter's arsenal, not changing everything about them. The guy who fought Tank looked nothing like Pedraza and made all his punches telegraphed and looping as well as barking every time he threw to make it more obvious that he was throwing. Why do all this against a short counterpuncher known for his power by giving him more to counter, making your shots easier to identify, and by fighting at his range to give him more opportunities to hit you? Pedraza already had the perfect style to beat Tank by fighting at long range and throwing harder to counter straight punchers all the time. This fight was a blatant dive in my opinion.

 

ROFL The mind boggles This is the guy that claims he knows boxing

 

It obviously wasn't a dive. Pedraza fought the fight he thought he needed to fight.

It's like suggesting AJ blatantly dived against Usyk, twice, because people think he'd have been better trying to walk him down and punch through him.