Photo: IMAGO
Gervonta Davis kept his unbeaten record intact, but only just, and largely thanks to a refereeing decision that boxing people are still arguing about. The WBA lightweight champion fought to a majority draw with Lamont Roach Jr at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn on 1 March, in a fight remembered less for the scorecards than for a bizarre ninth-round moment that could easily have ended with Davis’s zero gone for good.
The Knee That Wasn’t a Knockdown
Midway through round nine, Davis dropped to one knee in his own corner of the ring. Referee Steve Willis began a count, then stopped, warned Davis, and waved the fighters back on without ruling it a knockdown. Two of the three judges still gave Davis the round. Roach, who had been getting the better of the exchanges when Davis went down, was livid afterwards: “If you voluntarily take a knee and the ref starts counting, it should be a knockdown.” Under the rules, a fighter going down from anything other than a genuine slip is typically scored as a knockdown once the referee starts a count, which is exactly what left ringside opinion split.
Davis’s Explanation Didn’t Land Well
Davis’s account of the moment didn’t help his case in the court of public opinion. “I just got my hair done two days ago, and she put grease in my shit… the grease came in my face. It burnt my eyes,” he said, insisting the knee was involuntary rather than a deliberate breather. Whatever the cause, the optics of the champion needing several seconds to recover on one knee, without it counting against him on the cards, were bad enough that the debate outlasted the fight itself.
Crawford Wades In, Then Gets Clapped Back
Terence Crawford was among the loudest voices afterwards, tweeting that he had “never seen someone take a knee and they don’t count as a knock down” and arguing that “Roach won and that should have been called a knock down.” Davis didn’t bother with a written reply. Instead he reposted footage of Crawford doing almost exactly the same thing during his own 2019 win over Egidijus Kavaliauskas, a moment that also went uncounted at the time, a pointed way of suggesting Crawford’s outrage didn’t extend to his own fights.
NYSAC Reviews It, Changes Nothing
The New York State Athletic Commission looked into the incident in the days after the fight and reached an uncomfortable middle ground: the referee got it wrong, but the result stands. The commission said the “most appropriate call… would have been for the referee to determine that Mr. Davis’ knee contacting the canvas constituted a knockdown,” while also noting that the call was “within the discretion and authority of the referee” in the moment. With three more rounds fought after the incident, the NYSAC concluded there was no reliable way to say a corrected call would have changed the outcome, and declined to alter the draw retroactively.
Where It Leaves Both Men
The result was the first blemish on Davis’s record, now standing at 30-0-1, and pushed Roach to 25-1-2 without the win his performance arguably deserved. Davis keeps his WBA belt by virtue of the draw, but the goodwill damage looks harder to undo than the scorecards. Both fighters have talked openly about wanting the rematch, and given how the first fight is still being picked over months later, promoters won’t need much convincing to make it.
