Promoter Eddie Hearn believes the problem that the Gervonta Davis vs. What put the Lamont Roach fight in jeopardy from not happening is the amount of money PBC is offering Tank for this December 14th contest in Houston, Texas.
Hearn feels that WBA lightweight champion Tank (30-0, 28 KOs) has become accustomed to making a lot of money for his fights. He gets a certain amount for his minimum and then makes a lot of money with the PPV upside down.
It worked because the fights Tank did on PPV produced good numbers. However, Hearn thinks Premier Boxing Champions, who manage Tank, know the fight against Lamont Roach will bomb on PPV and at the box office.
So when Tank came to ask them how much he was getting for the fight, they told him that it was a lower figure than he made in his last fight against Frank Martin.
Tank then says he’s not going to fight Roach, which makes sense. He and PBC must have known that fans wouldn’t be interested in seeing Tank fight Roach because it’s seen as a mismatch, and that’s not one people want to see. There are more compelling matches at 135 that fans do want to see.
“I heard they couldn’t get a deal with Tank. The venues are a problem. How are the venues suddenly a problem? It’s very strange,” said Eddie Hearn Pro Boxing Fans about what he hears about why the Gervonta Davis vs. Lamont Roach fight could be moved from the December 14th date in Houston.
“This is my opinion. Gervonta Davis makes a lot of money. He makes a lot of money because he puts on big fights, and he’s done big pay-per-views. Probably, what happens is that he is at some kind of minimum, but at a very upside. Because his shows did really well, he made a lot of money,” Hearn said.
The selection of Lamont Roach put PBC in a tough spot because it’s a fight that won’t bring in huge PPV numbers no matter how they sell it. David Benavidez will not be fighting on the undercard to help sponsor Tank Davis as he was earlier this year on June 15th. Having Benavidez on the undercard helped bring in the buys for Tank’s fight against Frank Martin, which was not one fans were excited to see.
“Then he fights Lamont Roach, and while it’s not a bad fight, he’s going to bomb at the PPV, at the box office, everywhere in terms of what he did,” Hearn said. “So, he turns around and says to PBC, ‘How much do I get for this fight?’ They say, ‘Well, of course, we’ll have to see how it does on the gate and the pay-per-view.’
“He’s like, ‘I’m not fighting if I don’t get X because Eddie Hearn offered me $15 million to fight Conor Benn upside down. So you better pay me more than that to fight this guy,’ who is actually a good fighter too. They say, ‘We can’t pay that kind of money,’ and he goes, ‘Well, then I don’t fight.’
Tank Davis should have agreed to Hearn’s offer to fight Conor Benn when he made it to him a while back. Hearn Tank is unlikely to offer the same deal now, as Benn has other options available against Chris Eubank Jr.
“I’m not saying it’s happened, but it’s definitely something that could happen because it’s a very natural process,” Hearn said. “I’m not saying it’s actually PBC’s fault that they couldn’t give him a big fight, but it’s a tough fight, sort of.
“He’ll say, ‘This is a tougher fight than Frank Martin, and I got $15 million to fight Frank Martin. You tell me I only get five or six (million) to fight this man. I’m not fighting for five or six million.’ Perhaps. Speculation.”
If you’re Tank, you don’t want to take an enormous pay cut to fight Lamont Roach because it’s still going to be a tough fight for him. If there are bigger paydays available for Tank against other beatable fighters, why wouldn’t he want to fight them instead?
“They can’t be because they don’t have a rights deal,” Hearn said when asked if PBC will be more aggressive in getting fights this year. “They don’t have a broadcaster that pays the money. So how can you be aggressive.”
