Gervonta Davis’ debut at lightweight wasn’t the most impressive performance, which probably sounds weird because he dropped Yuriorkis Gamboa three times en route to a one-sided victory via 12th round stoppage.
"Tank" delivered a 12th-round TKO of Yuriorkis Gamboa to become the WBA world lightweight champion at State Farm Arena in Atlanta. But Davis (23-0, 22 KO) was fighting a faded opponent in Gamboa (30-3, 18 KO), and had some struggles with his stamina along the way, fading a bit even while winning most of the rounds in the fight, breathing hard as the fight went to a distance he’d never had to go before.
Davis, 25, dropped the 38-year-old Gamboa in the second round, and it seemed after that round finished that we might be getting an early night, as Gamboa complained to his corner that he couldn’t walk. As soon as he was dropped, he looked down at his leg.
“I think I ruptured my Achilles tendon,” Gamboa said through a translator. “I’m a warrior and I kept going, but as soon as I felt it, I knew it was ruptured. I can’t put pressure on it. I wanted to keep going, I’m a warrior.”
Gamboa did his best unable to put much weight on the leg and sit down on his punches.
Gamboa took some brutal shots in round five, and was dropped again in the eighth and once more, for a final time, in the 12th, with the fight halted at 1:17 of the final round.
“He’s a vet. I was catching him, I was hurting him, but he still was alert,” Davis said after the fight. “He was different from any opponent I’d fought before. I knew he was a great opponent. I believe my performance tonight was a C+.”