By Keith Idec
Like everyone else, Liam Walsh was impressed with how easily Gervonta Davis handled Jose Pedraza.
Davis dominated Pedraza on his way to scoring a sixth-round technical knockout and winning the IBF world super featherweight title January 14 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. As impressive as Davis was against Pedraza (22-1, 12 KOs), Walsh wants people to realize it’s still too soon to tout the hard-hitting Davis (17-0, 16 KOs) as a future superstar.
England’s Walsh wants to prove exactly that when he challenges the 22-year-old Davis for his IBF 130-pound championship May 20 at Copper Box Arena in London (Showtime; 6 p.m. ET/3 p.m. PT).
“I’m not gonna go all-out and say he’s completely overrated,” Walsh said Wednesday during a conference call. “But I think there’s a lot of questions to be asked of him. He looks very good. He looked brilliant versus Pedraza. Before Pedraza, the only other reputable fighter on his record is Cristobal Cruz, who was well past his better days. So there is a lot of question marks still lingering on with Gervonta. I will certainly ask all them questions of him.”
The 30-year-old Walsh (21-0, 14 KOs) is eager to see how Baltimore’s Davis responds when faced with an intelligent fellow southpaw who can box, move and knows how to neutralize Davis’ vaunted power.
“I’ve been in tougher fights than him,” Walsh said. “I’ve been in longer fights. I’ve been in quite a few long fights. I feel I have a better boxing IQ than him. I think physically he’s very good. He’s very powerful, very fast. But we haven’t seen him in a long fight.
“We haven’t seen him in a fight were someone gives him something to think about. We haven’t seen him even in a dogfight, a long, grueling fight, whichever way it has to go. And I will certainly ask all these questions. I know I’m capable of doing it any which way, whichever way it has to go. I’m more than confident that I’ll get the job done.”
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.
