Folks, don’t miss this fight. Make space on your calendars for this because this championship showdown between undefeated warriors Mario Barrios and Gervonta Davis has the makings of a potential fight-of-the-year candidate. Davis is moving up in weight to challenge Barrios for the WBA super-lightweight belt. Will Davis find success in the division right away? Or will Barrios deal Davis’ first loss of his pro career? Check out our preview of this fight below.
If Barrios is feeling confident of his chances against Davis, we can’t really blame him that much. After all, he will be defending his super lightweight belt in the division Davis is moving up to fight him. Davis has also never fought in this weight class. The undefeated Barrios will have a five-inch height advantage and a significant four-inch reach advantage. In his last fight, Barrios scored a knockout win in the sixth round technical knockout win against Ryan Jarl back in October 2020 to retain his WBA super-lightweight title. Barrios’ power has also been more prominently displayed over his last few fights. He has scored a T/KO victory in three of his last four fights. Given that Davis is going to fight Barrios way above his usual weight class, the former could feel the latter’s power early and how he would respond to that would be interesting, but right now, it’s fair to say that Davis should be very wary of The Aztec Warrior’s sting.
Speaking of confidence, don’t ever question whether Davis has it. Especially after the brutal knockout scored in his most recent fight. Davis folded four-division champion Leo Santa Cruz like a chair in their October 2020 bout. Tank unleashed a vicious uppercut during an exchange in the sixth round, which ended the fight in an instant. That was Davis’ 15th straight T/KO win, dating back to 2015 when he knocked out Israel Suarez in the first round. Before his win over Santa Cruz, Davis took care of business against former featherweight champion Yuriorkis Gamboa via a 12th-round TKO in December 2019. So far in his career, Davis has only let one man survive the distance against him. Whether his power would translate into the super lightweight division is something that remains to be seen, but he can still score points with great combinations. Volume punching could be the key for Davis here to compensate for his unproven power in the super-lightweight division.
