Boxing's brightest young star will be in action on Dec. 14 when Gervonta "Tank" Davis returns to the ring. Davis will be defending his WBA lightweight championship against WBA junior lightweight champ Lamont Roach Jr. at Houston's Toyota Center.
The WBA approved Roach moving up to challenge for the title on Sept. 30, stating that he must return to junior lightweight to defend his title against Albert Batyrgaziev should he lose against Davis.
Davis (30-0, 28 KO) is coming off an impressive stoppage of Frank Martin in June. While rumors -- and trash talk between the fighters -- had suggested a fight with Shakur Stevenson would be in Davis' future, that was always more likely to take place in 2025 than before the end of this year.
With Davis, the biggest American star in boxing, needing an opponent, Roach gets an opportunity at a big-money bout. Roach won his title in November 2023 with an upset of Hector Luis Garcia. In February, the WBA mandated that Roach negotiate a fight with Jono Carroll within 30 days and that the winner of Roach vs. Carroll would have 120 days to fight the next mandatory, Otar Eranosyan. Despite the order and the fact that Carroll and Eranosyan both won eliminators to become mandatories, Roach instead was approved to fight No. 12 ranked Feargal McCrory in a fight that was a washout win for the champion.
There had been rumors that this PBC pay-per-view event would be a doubleheader featuring David Benavidez defending his WBC interim light heavyweight championship against Jesse Hart, hopefully setting up a showdown with the winner of Saturday's undisputed light heavyweight title clash between Dmitry Bivol and Artur Beterbiev.
However, in recent weeks, talk has increased that Benavidez could instead take part in a highly anticipated fight with David Morrell in January and the fight with Hart was not announced along with Davis vs. Roach.