TANK, BOOTS, SPEEDY & BOO BOO: A ROUND-UP

TANK, BOOTS, SPEEDY & BOO BOO: A ROUND-UP

By Rachel Aylett

Last weekend, PBC got off to a flying start to 2023 with four of their big stars featuring in bouts, offering different levels of difficulty. The show took place in Washington D.C., and saw a big crowd in attendance, most of whom had come to see local idol Gervonta “Tank” Davis in his latest endeavour, facing the challenge of Hector Luis Garcia of the Dominican Republic.

Of course, Tank won – Tank always wins. But once again, there was an element of difficulty in his victory, as WBA super-featherweight belt holder Garcia was game and came to win. With his propensity towards a low punch output, Davis leaves himself vulnerable to being outscored by his opponents. As with all of his fights, he lost rounds and was far from guaranteed victory until he cut loose with a vicious and violent onslaught in the eighth round. So disorientated was Garcia at the bell to end the round that he/his corner quickly realised they dare not send him out for the ninth, for fear of his health.

So Davis goes on to (hopefully) fight the more famous Garcia, being Ryan, his long-time rival.  Watching Tank, it’s easy to feel that he will always find a way to win. He has that aura about him. Regardless of how the judges’ cards might be looking, Davis has that equaliser in his kit bag. This may even be enough to see him through against Ryan Garcia. However, looking even further ahead, there is no way he could afford to go behind on the cards against a Devin Haney or a Shakur Stevenson. I feel that either or both of these master boxers would prove a step too far for Tank.

I imagine that there is an ex-PBC matchmaker sifting through the Job Ads this week – this being the one that thought it would be a good idea to put one of PBC’s major stars, Jaron “Boots” Ennis, in with Ukrainian ballerina Karen Chukhadzhian.  Obviously, nobody passed Boots the message that he was appearing on Strictly Come Dancing, and he mistakenly packed his boxing gear rather than his tuxedo.

If there was one banker on this card to get an inside distance victory, it was Boots. How disappointing therefore to see him playing Coyote to Karen’s Road Runner. As is always the case, the coyote ended with egg on his face, although on this occasion, rather than egg, it was boos from the crowd that Ennis had to face. Still, he won virtually every round, so no real harm was done. In fact, it may be a timely lesson to him, just in case he was starting to believe his own publicity. 

The most concerning thing was not that Ennis couldn’t slow Chukhadzhian down enough to land more than one punch at a time. Rather, it’s the fact that when the Ukrainian did hold his feet, he was easily able to land clean head shots against Ennis in almost every round of the fight. Spence and Crawford were probably salivating watching that. Neither did Boots’ corner team cover themselves in glory, with his father reduced to yelling “let your hands go” over and over. He actually was letting his hands go, but he was hitting thin air.

At the press conference two days prior to the show, Rashidi “Speedy” Ellis seemed to be putting himself in the shop window for a fight against Ennis. Having seen Ellis a number of times before, this held little excitement for this writer. Even in his best win, over former Golden Boy stablemate Alexis Rocha, I sensed a vulnerability surrounding him, which would likely show up against better opposition. But was South American opponent Romain Villa that better opposition? 

After watching Ellis box his head off for eight rounds, this clearly did not seem to be the case. However, Ellis tired very badly in the last third of the fight, enabling the big-hitting Villa to tee off on him. Despite apparently building an unassailable early lead, Ellis might have lost the last four rounds. Not only that but he was heavily knocked down twice in the final round. I still had him winning clearly, but thanks to two of the judges, Ellis lost his unbeaten record.

As bad as Ellis looked in the home straight, he had boxed beautifully for eight rounds – which I had him sweeping. Villa plodded forward, seemingly clueless as to how to land on the target. The talk immediately afterwards was of a rematch and I hope, for Speedy’s sake, that this comes to fruition. He was robbed of a deserved victory here. But having dominated so clearly towards the end, surely Villa will perform better himself next time. But, for Ellis, it has become obvious now that he will never be a contender in the stacked welterweight division.

Finally, Demetrius “Boo Boo” Andrade had his first outing for PBC after leaving Matchroom. We all know what to expect from Andrade by now, and he predictably dominated his overmatched opponent, Darnell Nicholson, winning widely on the cards. Despite scoring two knockdowns, Boo Boo had to go the full distance again, as is usually the case.

Outside of his immediate family and close friends, Andrade is nobody’s favourite fighter. But he is really, really good at what he does.  Nobody has come remotely close to beating him. Okay, Martirosyan ran him close on the cards in 2013, but in reality that was a clear victory as well for Andrade. The problem is that Andrade is too good for his own good and no top-level fighter has ever dared risk his record or reputation by facing him in the ring. Here’s hoping that either Plant, Benavidez or Charlo steps up to the plate and we can find out once and for all just how good Andrade is.

The worrying thing for all the boxers mentioned above is that, on the whole, PBC boxers fight only twice a year. Does that mean that with 50 weeks left in the year, all of them have only one more fight to look forward to during that period?  So far, PBC has one further upcoming show booked in, at the Alamodome in Texas on 11th February. Al Haymon and his PBC organisation have the biggest and best stable in boxing. So much inactivity for all these star turns is really hurting the sport.

Photo Credit: Premier Boxing Champions