Third-generation Floyd Mayweather clone (by way of Adrien Broner) Gervonta Davis made quick work of late replacement opponent Hugo Ruiz Saturday night on Showtime, stopping him him in one round after apparently breaking his nose.
It’s exactly how he should’ve done it, given that Ruiz was a late replacement who’d fought less than a month ago, and only last year moved up to featherweight from junior featherweight. Davis is a junior lightweight.
Davis only took a couple meaningful punches, otherwise using his superior skill, size and especially power to make Ruiz skittish. It looks like a Davis jab might’ve been the nose-breaking shot, and a follow up right hook had Ruiz reconsidering whether he should’ve signed up for this. He went to a knee and when he got up, his face ejaculating blood, he gave no indication to the ref he wanted to continue.
It’s really too bad we got this, an exciting but meaningless stoppage, instead of the scheduled fight, a showdown between Davis and Abner Mares. Mares would’ve given us some indication of whether Davis is the real deal or not.
Certainly, like Mayweather and Broner, he showcases flashy talent. He also says obnoxious stuff and gets in legal scraps and even hangs out with both Floyd and, separately, Adrien. But he leans troublingly toward the Broner tendency to slack off with the training; he famously missed weight a couple fights ago, and did it again Friday, albeit only by a minuscule amount. He says he’s turned things around, but we’ve heard lazy fighters who take their gifts for granted say that before.
