The biggest storyline to watch before Gervonta Davis vs. Isaac Cruz and Devin Haney vs. Joseph Diaz

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Just ended a fierce battle full of drama on Saturday. It feels like a boost to the overall viability of the sport. Boxing returns in an important way this weekend. There are two must-sees. The main event focuses on the lightweight division with abundant talents.

Gervonta “Tank” Davis continued his march towards superstars, and he opposed the late Isaac Cruz in Sunday’s Showtime pay-per-view card headlines to defend his 135-pound WBA “regular” title. The night before, the undefeated WBC champion Devin Haney had a difficult defense against the former 130-pound belt holder Joseph Diaz Jr. on DAZN. .

Considering the former uniform champion Teofimo Lopez Jr. lost to upstart George Kambosos Jr. Last week, there was no shortage of story lines surrounding the entire department. Let us take a closer look at what to pay attention to.

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1. George Kambosos Jr. lucky draw is about to heat up

Let’s consider a sentence that no boxing fan would have heard last weekend. But the undefeated Cambosos was an Australian. He survived a late knockout and defeated Lopez in a battle that didn’t seem to be as close as the split decision. The scorecard is shown.Is the outcome of this battle more due to Kambosos’ overachievement or Lopez completed an epic act of self-destruction (Inside and outside the ring) does not matter because it is related to the future. As an online free agent in the United States, Kambosos is now giving orders because it is related to his next game. Although Kambosos has already said that, as far as the situation is concerned, Haney is the next front-runner to face him (provided that Haney defeats Diaz on Saturday), the reality is more likely that Kambosos will compete with any promoters and/or The promoters of the Net Pony fight for money.

From this perspective, the two lightweight tilts this weekend may become various trials for the winners of the two games to prove that they have a reason to challenge the new unified championship title. As a WBC champion, Hani makes sense as a front-runner considering the extra influence of Kambosos competing for the undisputed championship. Either way, the lightweight future looks bright, because Kambosos has found an unlikely path to bridge the gap between a group of top young fighters, who have not yet shared the ring with each other due to posture and politics.

2. Gervonta Davis’s substitute opponent is simply an upgrade

Whether it is due to injury, weight problems or drug test failures, boxing is no stranger to last-minute scrambles when a battle fails and a replacement opponent is called. However, there are very few replacement fighters who are better than the original opponent. Davis returned to PPV on Sunday. He originally planned to face off against the tough Rolando Romero in a game. Due to the fickle “Raleigh”, this game promised no shortage of trash talk and strange moments. , But not necessarily the fight that hardcore fans expect will be competitive. A series of negative news related to multiple allegations of sexual assault against Romero led him to be completely excluded from the fight. However, the good news is that Cruz, a rugged Mexican slugger who has remained unbeaten in the past 18 games, is a more competitive opponent. The 23-year-old Cruz, nicknamed “Pitbull”, is expected to put pressure on the talented Davis in ways that the original Romero simply could not achieve. There is no doubt that Cruz entered as a considerable betting loser, but his technique and aggressiveness are enough to force Davis to dig deeper and fight.

3. How long will it take for Davis to receive universal praise?

In the not-too-distant past, when the “tank” was often criticized as the protected face of the Mayweather promotional team, there is a story of them constantly seeking easy (and keyword: smaller) opponent weight. To be sure, from a public relations perspective, Davis is not always his biggest supporter to counter this criticism, because of the constant legal disputes outside the ring and the mediocre performance in the team (on the scale After losing his 130-pound world title)-Floyd Mayweather and Connor McGregor conspired to make him a boxing villain in 2017. But Davis has done a good job of restoring most of his reputation recently, at least from an inside-the-ring perspective, by seeking big fights and proving that every step of his ladder is a consistent draw, as he is against the knockout. Has an exciting hobby.

Looking at Davis’s last three games, you can see his ambition, because he won the championship in three different heavyweight competitions in a row. In these impressive conquests, Davis passed his first stoppage time defeat to multi-level champion Rio Santa Cruz through a brutal one-punch knockout. In the next game in June, Davis increased his weight to 140 pounds for the first time to stop Mario Barrios, who remained unbeaten in the 11th round of their full-action thriller. If you look at the P4P lists of most major publications, the 27-year-old Davis usually looks outside. Sometimes in P4P voting, the vision test may be as important as who the soldier is facing and his goal has been completed. Take Davis as an example. He has demonstrated the evolution of his skills from defense and head movement to his boxing ability in the past year. Will the victory over Cruz be a breakthrough moment for Davis, arousing universal respect for his skill in a way that his gorgeous elimination rate does not always explain? Only time will give the answer.

4. How should we pay attention to the ending of Devin Hani’s last battle?

The 23-year-old Hani undoubtedly has the ability to be the future of the 135-pound department, let alone the entire movement. But his challenge to former champion Jorge Linares in May allowed critics to show off his all-around talent, just like some breathless moments in the championship game. Hani has been criticized for his passive whitewashing of Uriokis Gamboa in 2020, and he hopes to make a statement by accelerating his pace against Linares. But the experienced sharpshooter shocked him with a clean shot, and Hani was forced to struggle to survive in the last two rounds. Is this just a small problem in the overall strong performance of the young boxer? Or, once Hani finally attracts elite figures like Davis, Lopez, Ryan Garcia or Vasily Lomachenko, he might encounter potential doom? It is too early to say. Expect the radical Diaz to try to find the answer as soon as possible in what should be an interesting shootout.

5. Paging Ryan Garcia

For most of 2021, the person who is a bit forgotten in the overall lightweight picture is the 23-year-old Garcia, who withdrew from the expected summer return against Javier Futuna to focus on his own Mental health.he is Then it’s scheduled to play against Jojo Diaz on November 27, Only withdrew from that game after a hand injury in the training camp. Garcia passed the biggest test of his career. He stood up from the canvas and defeated Luke Campbell. The recent social media sensation has been quiet, except for his input in the Kambosos raffle after last weekend. name. Seeing such a group of talented young lightweight players not fighting each other because of their respective publicity and network relations, the hardest part is that Garcia and Hani are fighting on the same platform (DAZN) and are playing against each other as amateurs. Six times. Will Garcia play in the game between Hani and Diaz in Las Vegas? Considering the title and the fact that both players are likely to win, it is understandable that both players are interested in facing Kambosos, but their respective promoters have no reason not to sit down and make some kind of succession plan for them. Meet the identity.



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