Hopefully Brian Custer was paid well for the indignity of hosting the inaugural press conference for the November 14 exhibition between Jake Paul and Gervonta "Tank" Davis, neither of whom was capable of making an already-dubious matchup seem remotely more interesting on Monday evening. Custer, employed by Showtime during its boxing run, was an estimable broadcaster and host, and had many thoughtful sit-downs with fighters on his podcast “The Last Stand.”
Now? Custer spent the better part of an hour Monday evening gassing up a fight between a cruiserweight and a lightweight, all part of a janky, button-pushing spectacle in which the cruiserweight paused to request a moment of silence for Charlie Kirk – a flashpoint figure who had nothing to do with boxing.
Say this: Jake Paul is apparently important enough for the chronically tardy Davis to show up for a media event on time. The fighters walked onto a dais in front of a small crowd at Times Square’s Palladium Theater a mere 10 minutes past 6 p.m. ET.
“I’m definitely excited, it’s gonna be good,” was among Davis’ opening remarks. He also forgot the date of the fight and later referred to Most Valuable Promotions, which is presenting the fight in partnership with Netflix, as “MP.” This prompted Paul to say, “He can’t read, just like Floyd [Mayweather].”
Paul’s MVP co-founder, Nakisa Bidarian, took the stage to announce that multiple world title fights would soon be announced for the undercard, including a “historically relevant” co-main. For those boxing observers who may be weary of hearing Turki Alalshikh feted ad nauseam, Bidarian also thanked Al Haymon.
The press conference’s overriding message was that substance is irrelevant if you have enough flash – though, in this case, flash was lacking, too. Custer referred to Paul’s win over a 58-year-old Mike Tyson last November – a sad affair that left many of the millions of watchers feeling sick – as “monumental.” A media member asked both fighters to present their case for being the face of boxing – a decent, open-ended question that should have provided each man plenty of opportunity to spew quote fodder.
“I’m not the face of boxing, fam,” responded Davis, who cut an awkward figure, giving brief answers to most questions and looking uninterested during the face-off.
“Numbers,” was Paul’s offering for why he is the face of boxing.
Even the moments of trash-talk proved boring or stomach-turning. Davis called Paul a “clown” early on. Paul retorted that “any man who puts his hands on a woman is a clown,” referring to Davis’ recent arrest for, and history of, domestic violence. Yet Paul himself has been accused of sexual assault (which subsequently went unaddressed). Davis attempted a stumbling, incoherent defense that included a mention of P. Diddy, and had to be bailed out by Custer, who moved on to allow media questions.
Those didn’t yield much fruit, either. The first question was sensible and sharp, directed at Davis, and concerned the boxing world’s desire to see him in with Shakur Stevenson, Devin Haney and Teofimo Lopez Jnr, as well as its negative reaction to his matchmaking.
“Why should I care?” Davis asked.
There followed a series of content creators asking generic questions. One of them spent about half a minute confessing what a big fan of Paul he was (prompting Davis to ask that the questioner's mic be taken away) before getting to a query.
That was about all there was to it. Paul delivered a couple of funny soundbites. Davis generally looked like he didn’t want to be there, and he did little, despite his assertion that he is in a better place than he once was, to disprove the notion that he is not.
Nobody asked the question that this lifeless, depressing event deserved: why – star power aside – anybody should care about it at all.
Owen Lewis is a freelance writer with bylines at Defector Media, The Guardian and The Second Serve. He is also a writer and editor at BoxingScene. His beats are tennis, boxing, cycling, books, travel and anything else that satisfies his meager attention span. He is on Bluesky and can be contacted at owentennis11@gmail.com.
