Ellerbe: Gervonta Davis' Next Fight Will Be On Pay-Per-View
By
Keith Idec
Published On Sun Jan 5, 2020, 08:35 AM EST
ATLANTA – The man who made more money on pay-per-view than any fighter in boxing history is convinced that the time is right to take Gervonta Davis to that platform.
Leonard Ellerbe, CEO for Mayweather Promotions, revealed following Davis’ 12th-round stoppage of Yuriorkis Gamboa on Saturday night that Davis’ next fight will headline a pay-per-view show. The 25-year-old Davis’ only appearance on pay-per-view thus far was in a co-feature, when he knocked out Francisco Fonseca on the Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor undercard in August 2017.
“Tank’s next fight will be on pay-per-view,” Ellerbe told BoxingScene.com. “He’s shown the fans across the world what kind of drawing power that he has. He has terrific drawing power. He puts behinds in the seats. The fans tune in because they wanna see excitement, and that’s what he brings to the table.”
Ellerbe didn’t go out of his way to mention a specific opponent, but he acknowledged Davis’ promotional group is interested in matching the left-handed knockout artist against four-division champion Leo Santa Cruz.
“Sure, why not?,” Ellerbe said. “[Santa Cruz] wants the fight, and we’re gonna see if we can make it happen.”
The 31-year-old Santa Cruz (37-1-1, 19 KOs), of Rosemead, California, repeatedly expressed before and after his last fight that he wants to face Davis next. Davis (23-0, 22 KOs), who moved up to lightweight for the Gamboa bout, has said he still can make 130 pounds and would move back down to make the Santa Cruz fight happen.
Santa Cruz moved up from the featherweight limit of 126 pounds to 130 for his last fight, a 12-round, unanimous-decision victory over Miguel Flores on November 23 at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.
Ellerbe isn’t sure when Davis, who fought three times in 2019, will return for his first fight of 2020.
“I can’t say that right now,” Ellerbe said. “We’re just moments away from this fight. We’ll go back to the drawing board. I’ll have a discussion with Al [Haymon] and Floyd, and Tank’s team, and we’ll go from there.”
Davis, an Atlanta resident raised in Baltimore, helped draw an announced crowd of 14,129 to State Farm Arena on Saturday night. His previous victory – a second-round knockout of Ricardo Nunez – attracted a capacity crowd of 14,686 to Royal Farms Arena in Baltimore.
Viewership for his win against Nunez was the second highest for any boxing match Showtime televised in 2019. The audience peaked at 594,000 that night, second only to the nearly 1 million viewers that tuned in for Deontay Wilder’s first-round knockout of Dominic Breazeale on May 18 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
Nielsen Media Research will release viewership figures Tuesday for the Showtime broadcast Davis and Gamboa headlined Saturday night.
Showtime televised each of Davis’ three fights in 2019. Mayweather and Ellerbe expected Davis to make his debut as a pay-per-view headliner after he annihilated Nunez, but Gamboa wasn’t the type of opponent the heavily favored Davis could’ve fought while attempting to test his pay-per-view value.
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