Gervonta Davis, who was being tapped as one of the prized top young talents Floyd Mayweather has in his arsenal at Mayweather Promotions, achieved his life long dream by defeating Jose Pedraza to win the IBF junior lightweight champion.
The younger and smaller Davis punished Pedraza with numerous power punches, 130 to be exact, throughout the fight until Davis knocked out Pedraza in the 7th round. Davis, who is from Richmond, Virginia, had a very large fan following in Brooklyn, New York where the Barclays Center came unglued when Davis won the fight. In his post-fight interview, Davis gave a lot of credit to his fans and team for helping him get to this level.
"It felt great to go in there in front of my fans and take boxing more seriously," Davis said. "I want to thank Floyd Mayweather, Leonard Ellerbe, Al Haymon, my hometown support and my team. It means a lot [to win this world title]. I put in hard work. My team put in hard work. We came out on top. I have a great promoter and a great boxer backing me and it felt great."
Davis was receiving nothing but praise from Mayweather during fight week. Not one to stay idle, Mayweather actually admitted he had no involvement in Davis' preparation for this camp, believing he had what it takes to win the world title.
"For this training camp, I didn't want to be around him," Mayweather said. "I didn't want to talk to him. I wanted him to focus so he could out there and be the best and that's what he did tonight. Is this the future of boxing? Absa-f***-lutely."
For Pedraza, he is likely to still move forward with his plans to move up to lightweight. Fightful broke the news of Pedraza's weight change when Pedraza talked to Fightful at the pre-fight press conference on January 12.
