Opening Bell: Gervonta Davis Steps Up Against Jason Sosa
Baltimore junior lightweight Gervonta “Tank” Davis (16–0, 15 KOs) will be in the biggest fight of his career this fall when he takes on eighth-ranked Jason Sosa (19–1–4, 15 KOs) of Camden, New Jersey on October 22 at a location to be announced. Premier Boxing Champions, created by Davis’s manager Al Haymon, has a card scheduled that day on NBC but we have no confirmation that Sosa-Davis fight will be on the show.
Davis had previously been in talks to face seventh-ranked Jose Pedraza and Sosa was in talks to face third-ranked Jezreel Corrales, but neither fight came to fruition. Sosa presents the toughest fight of Davis’s career by far, with Davis never having faced a top-ten fighter before. Sosa earned his spot in the junior lightweight top ten in his last fight with a come-from-behind 11th round stoppage of then seventh-ranked and previously unbeaten Javier Fortunua on June 24th in Beijing, China. Sosa made his national TV debut in the fight before Fortuna when he fought to a disputed majority draw against Nicholas Walters in December 2015 on HBO in a fight many thought Walters deserved to win.
Davis signed with Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s promotional company Mayweather Promotions last summer and made his national TV debut on Showtime in September with a first round knockout of Recky Dulay on the Mayweather-Berto undercard. Davis has fought on national TV three more times since, once on Bounce TV against Cristobal Cruz and twice on Spike TV against Luis Sanchez and Guillermo Avila. All three bouts ended in a Davis knockout victory.
Davis’s last fight was June 3 in Florida on the non-televised portion of a PBC on Spike card. He was able to knockout Mario Macias Rorozco in just 41 seconds.
Davis looks to extend his knockout streak to eight against Sosa and become the first titleholder from Baltimore since Hasim Rahman became the undisputed heavyweight world champion back in 2001. We’ve been high on Davis since he was a teenage amateur; check out some of our past coverage of his career.