Recent headlines involving lightweight titleholders Shakur Stevenson and Gervonta “Tank” Davis have created more potential avenues for Lamont Roach Jnr to travel down – avenues that Roach’s team plans to explore
Stevenson’s former WBC title is now available. And Davis’ WBA belt could soon be as well.
“We’ve seen with Lamont, he went from 130 to 135 to 140 within three fights. Lamont said it from day one: He’s ready for the big fights. He wants only big fights. He deserves big fights,” said Robert Diaz, Roach’s adviser and formerly the longtime matchmaker for Golden Boy Promotions, in an interview with BoxingScene.
Roach was winless in 2025. He was also undefeated in 2025. That’s because Roach had two highly competitive draws in 2025.
Last March, Roach moved up from junior lightweight and fought to a disputed majority draw with Davis. His team pursued a rematch with Tank, who instead went on to sign for a lucrative exhibition bout against Jake Paul.
And in December, Roach challenged Isaac “Pitbull” Cruz for the WBC’s interim belt at 140lbs. Again, the verdict was a majority draw.
Diaz plans to petition the WBC for Roach to fight for its newly vacant lightweight title.
Stevenson parted with his WBC title at 135lbs rather than pay sanctioning fees to the organization for his victory over Teofimo Lopez last weekend for the WBO belt, which also earned him the lineal and Ring Magazine championships at 140lbs.
“He’d love to fight Shakur. I think him and Shakur would be an amazing fight. But we need to move on,” Diaz said. “If we can’t get the rematch with Pitbull, then we need to go out and look for a world title fight, whether it’s any of the champions or vacant titles available at 135.”
In the WBC’s latest ratings update released on February 3, Roach is ranked second at 135lbs, behind only William Zepeda. The interim titleholder is Jadier Herrera, who stopped Ricardo Nunez in January for the secondary belt.
“Are they going to elevate the interim title or will they do number one against number two for the vacant title?” Diaz asked.
Meanwhile, the WBA has Roach in the fourth spot at lightweight, behind Floyd Schofield at No. 1, then Lucas Bahdi and Bakhodur Usmonov. Roach used to hold the WBA belt at 130lbs but was stripped of it on the day of his bout with Cruz.
Davis was recently named the WBA’s “champion-in-recess” at 135lbs given his ongoing legal problems due to allegations of domestic violence from a former girlfriend. The sanctioning body says it will soon decide whether to take any further action. Those allegations also led to Davis being pulled from the Paul exhibition.
“With Tank and his situation, there’s a good possibility that Lamont could fight for the WBA title against Schofield or Lucas Bahdi,” Diaz said.
Roach fought most of his bout against Cruz with a broken right hand after suffering the injury in the fifth round. On February 4, Roach posted on social media that he’s been “medically cleared to return to the ring.”
David Greisman, who has covered boxing since 2004, is on Twitter @FightingWords2. David’s book, “Fighting Words: The Heart and Heartbreak of Boxing,” is available on Amazon.
