The following statement would have seemed almost impossible at this time last year but is now entirely realistic, bordering on downright probable: Floyd Mayweather, who turns 49 years old next year, will still be an active boxer making tens of millions of dollars to throw punches after the fighting career of his one-time protégé, Gervonta Davis, who turns 31 this Friday, is over.
Last Thursday was a busy news day for these two former friends. In the morning, the media reported, straight from Manny Pacquiao’s mouth, that “there’s an ongoing negotiation” for a Mayweather-Pacquiao rematch in 2026, possibly carried by Netflix. And in the afternoon, new accusations against Davis of domestic violence became public knowledge, putting the kibosh on his planned November 14 exhibition on Netflix against Jake Paul.
It’s a remarkable contrast. “Tank,” right in the heart of what should be his prime years, could be finished, whether because of legal troubles or an extinguished fighting flame – or both. Mayweather, a decade or two past his prime and more than eight years into his retirement from fights that count, is proving to still have the power to move financial mountains with his fists.
There is an undeniable similarity in the early-career outside-the-ring stories of Mayweather and Davis: Both spent their 20s as troubled young men, establishing patterns of violence, often toward the women in their lives.
But a key difference has emerged that created the contrast in where their arcs have gone. It took a lot of time, including 63 days of doing time, but Mayweather eventually got his act together. Davis exhibits no signs of being close to doing likewise.
Tank’s rap sheet is lengthy. And getting lengthier all the time.
In 2017, he was arrested for first-degree aggravated assault for allegedly punching a childhood friend in West Baltimore, Maryland. In 2018, there was an arrest for a fist fight in Washington, D.C. In 2020 came an incident in Miami caught on video in which he dragged a woman out of a basketball game by the neck. In 2021, a hit-and-run in downtown Baltimore led to house arrest, and when Davis was found to have violated the terms of his home detention, he was sent to jail for 41 days. In 2022, he was arrested in Florida for domestic violence, though his accuser eventually took back her accusations (which allowed Davis’ planned fight to move forward). This past summer he was arrested in Miami Beach for the alleged assault of an ex-girlfriend, though again the victim later declined to prosecute.
And now, a former girlfriend, Courtney Rossel, has filed a civil suit claiming Davis entered the club where she worked and hit Rossel in the back of the head, choked her, grabbed her and pushed her. The suit claims Davis has been violent toward her on at least four other occasions and has threatened multiple times to kill her.
People deserve second chances. Maybe third chances.
But at a certain point, a man is who he is.
A man who spends time in jail and proceeds after getting sprung to face three separate allegations of violence toward women over the next four years – sure, innocent until proven guilty and all that, but all signs point to Davis being nowhere close to turning a corner.
Again, he’s now 30 years old. He’s not some stupid teenager making foolish, forgivable mistakes. He’s a grown man who, if the accusations are to be believed, cannot control his worst impulses and has learned not a single lesson.
Mayweather was no angel either, but he eventually – at least as far as the public record states – learned to behave himself.
He faced charges of domestic violence and/or misdemeanor battery in 2002, 2004, 2005 and 2010. The last of those led to a sentencing for battery against an ex-girlfriend in 2011 and a little over two months in county jail in 2012.
Not to minimize all that horrific alleged behavior, but Mayweather paid his debt to society, and since he got out of jail, his only legal issues have involved defamation and some possible cryptocurrency shenanigans.
It seems he eventually figured it out.
And he figured it out to the tune of becoming the most successful athlete in the history of boxing.
I’m not saying Mayweather is the “GOAT” or “TBE” or anything like that. But to me, the definition of success in prizefighting is making money, achieving greatness and getting out of the sport healthy.
In career earnings, just from boxing, Mayweather made an estimated $1.1 billion. That number laps the field. Adjust for inflation all you want; he is “Money” Mayweather, boxing’s all-time undisputed paycheck king.
Holes can be poked in his in-ring achievements, in terms of opponents he could’ve/should’ve fought but didn’t (or did, but not at the ideal time). And I am inclined to poke a few of those holes, hence my refusal to affix the “GOAT” or “TBE” labels to him. But Mayweather did retire with a perfect record of 50-0, having won titles in five weight classes. His name enters the conversation when experts discuss the best ever to don gloves. You can’t ask for much more than that, legacy-wise.
There is an asterisk attached to the “getting out of the sport healthy” part, because it appears he isn’t out of the sport just yet. But, at the present moment, Mayweather is a case study in getting through a boxing career with your faculties intact. He was never knocked out, and barely even knocked down. He never took a sustained beating. In interviews, he sounds the same now as he did 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago.
Mayweather is the most successful boxer ever, and I don’t think it’s close.
And there were plenty of times along the way when it didn’t seem that’s where this was headed. His outside-the-ring issues threatened to derail him, to turn him into a classic case of, “yeah, he was great – but he should have been so much greater.”
Then there’s Tank Davis.
He turned pro in 2013, and Mayweather soon took him under his wing.
In 2015, when Mayweather fought Andre Berto in what was supposed to be his retirement fight, Davis, 11-0 at the time, got a spot on the undercard and knocked out Recky Dulay in the first round of a scheduled six.
Mayweather was offered too much easy money to stay retired. He fought once more, officially, against Conor McGregor in 2017 in the second-most-purchased pay-per-view of all-time. Davis got the coveted co-feature spot, against Francisco Fonseca. He did not exactly take full advantage, missing weight by two pounds and getting stripped of his title and generally failing to impress en route to stopping Fonseca in the eighth.
Still, Davis went on to have an outstanding boxing career. He became a top draw, headlined numerous pay-per-views, won belts in three divisions – he was never going to be the “next Floyd,” but he was shaping up to be a reasonable successor, arguably the non-heavyweight face of American boxing, the U.S. star most capable of putting butts in seats.
If it’s all over for Davis – and it may well be – he has a viable shot at eventual induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. (The resume is spotty, but he never officially lost and he knocked out the likes of Ryan Garcia, Leo Santa Cruz, Mario Barrios and Rolly Romero, and star power has proven significant in getting a few fighters with records flimsier than Tank’s over the finish line.)
But it seems the key lessons his former mentor Mayweather tried to pass along to him, whether by word or by example, did not stick. Floyd showed that you could sell yourself as “the bad guy” but figure out where to draw the line on being a bad guy.
Davis still doesn’t understand where that line is. Or maybe he doesn’t care.
Big picture, it probably didn't matter much whether he fought Paul. Tank was already saying it would be his last fight, that he’d lost his passion for the sport. Fighting a cruiserweight YouTuber was a cynical cashout, not a serious athletic endeavor.
Davis is facing larger concerns than one fight.
He’s at a crossroads, and last week’s news suggests he’s made yet another wrong turn.
Maybe he isn’t capable of getting his act together, as Mayweather once did.
Maybe Gervonta Davis is simply a man with a dark side, and that dark side is destined to finish undefeated.
That the mentee never caught the mentor in terms of money or greatness is no surprise at all.
But the mentor wasn’t supposed to chronologically outlast the mentee.
Mayweather re-staking a claim as the face of boxing in 2026 and Davis staking no claim at all goes against the natural order of things.
One man continues, against all logic, to rake in the “Money.” The other man continues, against all logic, to “Tank” his career.
Eric Raskin is a veteran boxing journalist with nearly 30 years of experience covering the sport for such outlets as BoxingScene, ESPN, Grantland, Playboy, and The Ring (where he served as managing editor for seven years). He also co-hosted The HBO Boxing Podcast, Showtime Boxing with Raskin & Mulvaney, The Interim Champion Boxing Podcast with Raskin & Mulvaney, and Ring Theory. He has won three first-place writing awards from the BWAA, for his work with The Ring, Grantland, and HBO. Outside boxing, he is the senior editor of CasinoReports and the author of 2014’s The Moneymaker Effect. He can be reached on X, BlueSky, or LinkedIn, or via email at RaskinBoxing@yahoo.com.
