LAS VEGAS – Yuriorkis Gamboa at least is supposed to add name recognition to Gervonta Davis’ record.

If everything unfolds according to Mayweather Promotions’ plan Saturday night in Atlanta, the powerful southpaw will knock out Gamboa and move toward more meaningful fights in 2020. But even at 38, Davis considers Gamboa just fast, strong and experienced enough to approach the 2004 Olympic gold medalist as a legitimate threat in their lightweight title fight at State Farm Arena.

To ensure he doesn’t end up on the wrong end of what would be a huge upset, Baltimore’s Davis has prepared for the Gamboa that troubled Terence Crawford early and buzzed him late in their fight 5½ years ago, not the Gamboa that Robinson Castellanos beat up and stopped in May 2017.

“You can’t sleep on Gamboa,” Davis told a group of reporters recently. “He just had a second-round knockout. He looked good, so I definitely ain’t sleeping on him. Actually, he started boxing, turned pro, before me. So, we know he a veteran, we know he strong, he fast and I can’t overlook him.”

The 25-year-old Davis referred to Gamboa’s second-round knockout of former WBO junior lightweight champ Rocky Martinez (30-4-3, 18 KOs). Gamboa got that win on the Davis-Ricardo Nunez undercard July 28 at a sold-out Royal Farms Arena in Baltimore.

Davis recorded a second-round knockout of his own against Panama’s Nunez (21-3, 19 KOs), who was the mandatory challenger for the WBA 130-pound crown Davis vacated to move up to the 135-pound division.

Davis (22-0, 21 KOs), who is listed by most sports books as a 20-1 favorite, and Gamboa (30-2, 18 KOs) will fight for a vacant version of the WBA’s lightweight title. Ukraine’s Vasiliy Lomachenko (14-1, 10 KOs) is the WBA’s “super” champion at lightweight.

Showtime will televise Davis-Gamboa as the main event of a tripleheader scheduled to begin at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT.

The co-featured fight will match Quebec’s Jean Pascal (34-6-1, 20 KOs, 1 NC) and Sweden’s Badou Jack (22-2-3, 13 KOs) in a 12-round fight for Pascal’s WBA world light heavyweight title. In Showtime’s opener, former IBF super middleweight champ Jose Uzcategui (29-3, 24 KOs), of Tijuana, Mexico, and Lionell Thompson (21-5, 12 KOs), of Buffalo, New York, are set to meet in a 10-round, 168-pound bout.

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.