By Ben Jacobs

Undeterred by the fact that he has not fought since April 2016, Jose Pedraza (22-0, 12 KOs) is full of belief heading in to the third defence of his IBF super featherweight title against Gervonta Davis (16-0, 15 KOs) on January 14.

“I’ve done a lot of rounds of sparring, I’m happy for this opportunity because I had been inactive,” Pedraza told BoxingScene.com.

“They kept changing my opponent, then the date changed but now I have this opportunity against a very good fighter, you have to say that.  He’s an excellent boxer, very talented and he’s signed to Mayweather.  But that can help me as well because it can put me on the map, so I’m happy with this.  I’m going in well prepared because even though I’ve been inactive I have been training well.”

Despite recognising the talents of Baltimore’s Davis, Pedraza is determined to lay down a marker in this clash at the Barclays Center in New York City.

“Davis is a boy, he’s Mayweather’s spoilt boy,” declared ‘Sniper’.

“He wants to be like Floyd but we’re going to close his mouth so he can stop talking all this stuff he’s been saying.  He’s not the first boxer I’ve fought that talks a lot.  He’s going to find out who is the boss here.

“Apart from the experience in my amateur career and my professional career, I’ve fought better opponents than him such as Edner Cherry, Stephen Smith and Andrey Klimov, these are quality fighters.  On the other hand, he has fought only class c or d fighters, lower quality opponents.  What we can say about him is he is very talented, he’s a good boxer but he hasn’t fought anybody.  He’s never been hit with a shot where people say, ‘Look he can take a punch’ or ‘He has the courage to stand up.’  We haven’t seen any of that yet.”

While he is a southpaw, Davis does display similar traits to his mentor Floyd Mayweather in terms of his movement in the ring, but Pedraza is of the belief that imitation will not serve him well.

“His style looks like it can be uncomfortable for the opponent, but I have the advantage here.  I’m taller than him and I have longer arms.  It won’t be easy, he has very fast hands but he is slow on his feet.  On the other side of things, I have fast hands and good foot speed so we can take advantage of that. 

“He is similar to Mayweather but a cheap copy.  We’re going to find his weaknesses, we know how to fight him using height and distance and if we have to fight inside we’ll do that as well.”