Lamont Roach Jr. says WBA lightweight champion Gervonta Davis will make a big mistake if he lets him jump out to an early lead on March 1st.
Roach’s Keys to Victory
The technically skilled super featherweight champion Roach Jr. (25-1-1, 10 KOs) states that if he takes the early rounds, Tank (30-0, 28 KOs) will be in the tough position of needing to chase him to play catch-up to score a knockout, and he’s not going to let that happen.
One thing that people must note is the fact that Tank has been getting outboxed by many of his recent flawed opponents. These are not talented fighters that Tank has been fighting, yet they’ve banked rounds against him, and put him in a hole where he needed to score knockouts to win.
Unlike Gervonta’s last five opponents, Roach will not try to knock him out. So, it will be much harder for Davis to connect with one of his bail-out knockout shots that he’s been accustomed to scoring to turn his fights around.
If Tank is going to win, he will need to go on the hunt and utilize his skills because catching Roach in a moment of recklessness is not going to be simple.
Davis vs. Roach will headline a 12-round fight on PBC on Prime Video PPV on March 1st at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. The fight was previously scheduled for December 14th at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas, but due to venue problems, Davis-Roach had to be moved to March 1st.
“He is accurate. He does hit people on the button. That is one thing he do. I noticed that he has pinpoint accuracy when it comes to hitting people right there on their soft spot,” said Lamont Roach to Luke Thomas, talking about what makes Gervonta Davis so good.
“Make him uncomfortable,” said Roach about what he plans to do against Tank Davis. “He proved that he’s durable in the Pitbull fight because he had one hand, and he was still defending, wasn’t getting hit a lot, but he was uncomfortable, though, because Pitbull was throwing some heat at him. He showed good defense in that fight.
“Pitbull is a solid volume puncher that he fought. He did exceptional,” said Roach about how Gervonta did against a fighter with a high work rate, Isaac Cruz. “In the last four rounds, he had one hand. If there’s a durable volume puncher in front of him, I think he’ll look the same as he did against Pitbull unless somebody catch him.
Tank, 30, is accurate with his counter-punching when he’s facing guys who are throwing wild punches and not thinking about what’s coming back. We saw that in his fights with these guys:
– Frank Martin
– Ryan Garcia
– Hector Garcia
– Rolando ‘Rolly’ Romero
– Mario Barrios
– Leo Santa Cruz
Tank would have knocked out Isaac ‘Pitbull’ Cruz, too, but he was fighting with only one hand after suffering an injury early. The commonality of the last six knockouts that David has scored is that his opponents have all been wild and not technically sound. Roach isn’t going to leave openings like those one-dimensional fighters did.
Early Rounds Are Crucial
“If he wants to give away early rounds against me, that’s stupid. I’m going to take them,’ said Roach. “The next thing he looks up, it’s going to be probably a drastic change in his game plan. That’s obviously going to be something he has to make up for. Now, it’s going to be either a chase or a knockout. I’m not going to let that happen.
“My best advice for him is you better not give me any early rounds. It’s going to be a long night for you, buddy,” said Roach about his advice for Tank.
