Writing about the then-upcoming Gervonta Davis-Ryan Garcia fight last week, the question pondered was whether Davis could finish his evolution into ‘the kind of attraction whose events can reach realistically for nine-figure valuations.’
Winning was part of the equation. Getting to a new plateau and capitalizing on it completely was tied to victory.
Davis won on both counts.
Initial reports estimate the Davis-Garcia bout broke the one-million buy mark on pay-per-view, the first boxing event to do so since the Mike Tyson-Roy Jones exhibition in 2020. It goes back even farther, to Saul Alvarez-Gennadiy Golovkin II in 2018, to find a non-gimmick event crossing the threshold. Factoring pay-per-view prices ranging from $60 on DAZN to approximately $85 dollars via Showtime pay-per-view in combination with the live gate, this was in essence a nine-figure event, and likely the richest lightweight fight of all time.
It won’t be Davis’s last.
Saturday was not a one-man show. Garcia brought a lot to the table and the combination of the two fighters in the ring made the event. However, given the gates and attendance Davis has commanded coast-to-coast in the United States in the last couple years, it’s his progress as a new boxing mega-attraction at the center of the story.
Davis is now fully arrived.
How Davis has arrived is more unique than most realize and the leak of numbers from last weekend really brings it into focus. We just saw a rare blockbuster result.
There are some things missing in the build of Gervonta Davis we expect to see along the road to megastardom.
In another generation, it was Olympic glory. That matters less these days but a fighter like Sugar Ray Leonard turned professional with national attention. He also turned professional with a group of rivals around him to build toward. Olympic success was a golden ticket at least through 1992 and still at least helps with early feet in the door.
Davis didn’t have anything resembling that early in his career. Some would point to his association with Floyd Mayweather (and on Garcia’s side, affiliation with Oscar De La Hoya), as big contributors both to the success of last weekend and their development as stars. It’s certainly a factor. There are other fighters under the umbrella of both those Hall-of-Famers and they aren’t creating those numbers right now.
Last weekend was an explosion at a grass-roots level.
Another thing we didn’t see on the road for Davis was the ritual of sacrifice that is so often intrinsic to the development of stars. Davis faced some veterans, like Leo Santa Cruz, but that’s not what the ritual is about.
The ritual is the sort of torch passing moments that so often leave fans with tears in their eyes.
Images of Joe Louis laying through the ropes against Rocky Marciano; Muhammad Ali retiring in the corner against Larry Holmes; Oscar De La Hoya leaving Julio Cesar Chavez a bloody mess…these are part of the history of boxing. Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao both went from solid stars to omega stars at the expense of De La Hoya, the Golden Boy unintentionally returning the favor. Mayweather denied Saul Alvarez victory but even rubbing shoulders with the biggest star in boxing was critical to the space Alvarez eventually occupied.
They were events that marked the passage of time, built around a moment for the new guy to take the place of a legend.
Neither Davis or Garcia traveled that road. Garcia barely even appeared on traditional media outlets. Leonard didn’t need it either but he’s an exception that might not have been without Montreal in 1976. This fight showed there is a way for boxing to carve out new millions in new ways.
In that sense, the success of the event might only be the second best news of the week. With the right creativity and marketing, and the right star, boxing doesn’t have to sacrifice its old to make something new.
Those fights won’t ever stop; the sad results are memorable in part because they work.
But the idea that boxing can find a new star on its own, with a field of rivals there to continue to build on, means the old ways aren’t the only way and more old men may find grace on the way to the exit.
Cliff Rold is the Managing Editor of BoxingScene, a founding member of the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board, a member of the International Boxing Research Organization, and a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be reached at roldboxing@hotmail.com