In this week’s mailbag, we tackle your thoughts on the entertaining and controversial draw between Gervonta “Tank” Davis and Lamont Roach Jnr, as well as the arrival of Gary Antuanne Russell as a world titleholder at 140lbs following his win over Jose “Rayo” Valenzuela and the retirement of former unified junior middleweight titleholder Jarrett Hurd.

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GERVONTA DAVIS’ CHERRY-PICKING WAYS ARE CATCHING UP WITH HIM

So Tank refuses to fight anyone in the top five fighters in his division – make that top 10, according to BoxRec – and now he is going to have a rematch with Lamont Roach Jnr with a built-in excuse for doing the same thing all over again. 

Quite frankly, watching the fight I felt that Davis’ skills have regressed and he no longer appears to be the fighter he was only a few fights ago. It looks like his cherry-picking ways are catching up with him. If he ever grows balls and decides to fight someone dangerous, he might be in for a rude awakening. 

-bronkobugarski

Owen Lewis’ response: A good rule of thumb while watching this maddening sport is to not expect fighters to perform well above their established baseline. Here’s what I mean in the case of “Tank” Davis: He is not a fighter who constantly runs at the toughest challenges. 

I would love to see Davis fight Shakur Stevenson, then jump up to 140lbs and call out the best fighters there. But that doesn’t feel realistic given the enormity of the task and Tank’s choice of opponents so far. With that in mind, it’s easier to not go insane watching him operate well below where we think his ceiling is – basically, let’s treat him like Tank, not like Naoya Inoue. 

Two years ago, if you told me that Tank might one day fight Lamont Roach twice in a row, I’d be disappointed. Now that we’ve seen the thoroughly entertaining first go-around, I don’t mind.

As for Tank’s skills… one fight is an awfully small sample size, and I think Roach demonstrated he’s a level above Frank Martin. I’d argue that the Roach fight was Tank’s rude awakening: Tank’s punches didn’t have the effect he’s accustomed to them having, and he didn’t have a backup plan. 

Tank is a spectacularly skilled fighter, but even at the height of his hype, I don’t think many projected all-time greatness in his future. Like his choice of opponent, Tank losing to a dangerous fighter wouldn’t feel abnormal to me.

NO NEED FOR A REMATCH: ROACH BEAT DAVIS ONCE ALREADY

I don’t want to see Roach run it back with Tank. He fought a knockout specialist and won… despite what a dirty organization, dirty referee and dirty judges said. 

Roach fought a dangerous war. These fights take a lot out of a boxer. Roach should move on to face other elite opponents like Shakur Stevenson. I look at a fighter like Meldrick Taylor, who destroyed his body just to be robbed against Julio Cesar Chavez. He entered into a rematch with Chavez and was destroyed some more. His career was never the same, and he doesn't have anything to show for it. Has anyone seen Taylor later in life? He's in bad shape. 

Roach’s health is more important. He should teach dirty PBC a lesson by not entering into a rematch with Tank. But we know money and glory talk, unfortunately 

-Lefty0616

Owen Lewis’ response: I’ll take issue with your comparison to Chavez-Taylor. In that fight, per CompuBox, the notoriously hard-punching Chavez landed 258 punches on Taylor. In the Legendary Nights documentary on the fight, referee Richard Steele said that, even as Taylor won rounds, he saw Chavez landing “punches that would break bones.” (I’ll spare you the details of Taylor’s subsequent hospital visit.) 

Despite Taylor being up on the cards by fight’s end, few would dispute that he was breaking down in the face of the punishment in the championship rounds. And even those who disagreed with the stoppage can’t deny that Taylor went down from a truly vicious Chavez right hand moments before.

By comparison, Tank landed 103 punches on Roach, never knocked him down, and never had him visibly hurt. Every fighter is different, and I have no idea how Roach’s body will react to the 12 rounds he spent in the ring with Davis. But he did not take a beating like Taylor took at the hands of Chavez.

Like you, I’d like to see Roach fight Stevenson, though for different reasons. It’d be a good measure of Roach’s ability to deal with different styles, and it would give Stevenson an opportunity to one-up Davis by handling one of his former opponents in greater style. 

Davis’ commitment to the sport seems to be wavering, and most felt Roach deserved the nod over him. So let’s see two hungry fighters in Roach and Stevenson go at it, and let’s see if Davis is still engaged enough to furiously call out the winner afterwards.

That said, I don’t view Roach as a damaged fighter the way you do – perhaps his next fight will prove me wrong – and I’d be happy to see the rematch with Davis as well.

TANK’S KNOCKOUT POWER SERVED HIM WELL UNTIL THE ROACH FIGHT

Tank definitely has boxing skills. His problem is that they’re literally all geared toward obtaining the knockout. Every fight, we wait to see if he’ll solve his opponent. Nothing wrong with that; his build was never really designed for drawn-out points victories now, was it? It’s also why he’s such a big draw. But like any knockout artist, when it doesn’t happen, it really rather is one big, soggy disappointment.

-JeBron Lamez

Owen Lewis’ response: This is a fascinating point. It’s not as if “Tank” approaches fights like Deontay Wilder, disregarding the points system entirely in pursuit of landing a single bludgeoning right hand. You’re right, though – Tank’s best attributes tend to be stepping stones toward scoring a KO. 

There’s his power, of course. There’s his pressure, there’s his counterpunching, and there’s his defense, which lets him avoid getting tagged clean most of the time while he marches inexorably forward. But when he isn’t storming toward the stoppage, like against Roach, his low activity can make him look a bit ordinary.

Now I disagree that the absence of a KO is necessarily a “big, soggy disappointment.” Tank-Roach had its share of thrills and two-way action, even without a knockout or a single (official) knockdown. And I’m not sure I agree that Tank’s skills are a problem in any way. He isn’t a big guy, but he still has ways to win rounds. Heck, simply by virtue of his power, he should be landing the more effective punches in most rounds, regardless of who he’s fighting. He might need to throw a bit more and start a bit faster to make the most of that innate ability to win rounds, but it’s there.

It’s up to Tank whether he makes these improvements, of course. Naturally, stoppages will be harder to come by against elite opponents, if Tank is interested in fighting them going forward. So the Roach fight could be the start of phase two of his career – one in which he begins to trust his skills to win him a decision as much as he trusts his power to get him a knockout. Or it could become the night we learned Tank doesn’t quite know what to do when the seemingly inevitable stoppage never arrives.

BIG DIFFERENCE, BIG PERFORMANCE FOR GARY ANTUANNE RUSSELL 

Gary Antuanne Russell was phenomenal in that fight (“Gary Antuanne Russell makes his own name, upends Jose Valenzuela”). He might as well have been beating up a heavy bag. It's hard to believe that this was the same guy that lost to Alberto Puello last June.

-PNUT901

Lucas Ketelle’s response: Russell is a special fighter, a U.S. Olympian in 2016 and now a world titleholder. Here is the other true statement: So is Puello. Puello might fight like an avant-garde jazz musician disrupting timing, but he is a tricky puzzle. On Saturday, we saw two things: Russell is the extremely talented fighter we believed he could be on his ascent, and Puello is also a top guy who just doesn’t dazzle.

Another thing that we might have seen: Experience matters. Russell losing a fight might have created a monster, as now he knows what it is like to lose, and that can be a skill if you hate that feeling and have no comfort with it. Russell enters the mix among the best, but maybe we as fight fans overvalue undefeated records and don't appreciate that a loss can be a learning lesson that makes a fighter more dangerous.

FOR JARRETT HURD, A GOOD CAREER AND A GOOD CHOICE TO END IT

Respect for Jarrett Hurd and certainly a good decision to hang up the gloves (“Johan Gonzalez sends Jarrett Hurd into retirement with split decision win”). Beating Erislandy Lara shows just how good Hurd was, but time and punishment told on him. Hope he has a long, happy life beyond the ropes. 

-1Eriugenus

Tris Dixon’s response: Not much more you can say to that. The timing is good. I don’t think it’s there anymore for Hurd, and it hasn’t been for a while, even if he’s been looking for that spark for one last successful run. As you say, a career to be proud of and some tremendous fights. He was red hot for a while, and here’s hoping he quickly finds peace with his decision and in retirement.

Want to be featured in the mailbag? Comment or ask a question in the comments section below. Submissions may be edited for length and clarity. We also may select readers’ comments from other BoxingScene stories.