Lamont Roach Jr. says WBA lightweight champion Gervonta Davis will be making a big mistake if he lets him take an early lead on March 1.

Roach’s key to victory

Technically skilled super featherweight champion Roach Jr. (25-1-1, 10 KOs) says Tank (30-0, 28 KOs) will be in a difficult position to chase him to play if he wins the early rounds wins comeback to score a knockout and he won’t let that happen.

One thing people need to keep in mind is the fact that Tank has been outsmarted by many of his recent weak opponents. These aren’t talented fighters that Tank has fought, but they put up rounds against him and put him in a hole where he had to score knockouts to win.

Unlike Gervonta’s last five opponents, Roach won’t try to take him out. Therefore, it will be much more difficult for Davis to deliver one of his decisive knockout punches that he is used to delivering to turn his fights around.

If Tank wants to win, he’ll have to hunt and use his skills, because it won’t be easy to catch Roach in a moment of recklessness.

Davis vs. Roach will headline a 12-round bout on PBC on Prime Video PPV on March 1 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. The fight was originally scheduled for December 14 at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas, but due to venue issues, Davis-Roach had to be rescheduled for March 1.

“He’s accurate. He hits people on the button. That’s one thing he does. “I’ve noticed that he’s very precise in hitting people right where their weaknesses are,” Lamont Roach told Luke Thomas, talking about what makes Gervonta Davis so good.

“Make him uncomfortable,” Roach said of his plans against Tank Davis. “He proved he had endurance in Pitbull fighting because he had one hand and he still defended, didn’t get hit much, but he still felt uncomfortable because Pitbull fired some heat at him.” He pointed in a good defense in this fight.

“Pitbull is a solid hitter he fought against. He put in an exceptional performance,” Roach said of Gervonta’s performance against a high-work-rate fighter, Isaac Cruz. “He had one hand in the last four rounds. If there’s a sustained volume hitter in front of him, I think he’ll look the same as he did against Pitbull unless someone catches him.

The 30-year-old Tank is accurate with his counterpunches when he goes up against guys who throw wild punches and don’t think about what’s coming back. This is what we saw in his fights with these guys:

– Frank Martin
– Ryan Garcia
– Hector Garcia
– Rolando “Rolly” Romero
– Mario Barrios
–Leo Santa Cruz

Tank would have also knocked out Isaac “Pitbull” Cruz, but he fought with only one hand after suffering an injury early on. The commonality of the last six knockouts David has scored is that his opponents have all been wild and not technically sound. Roach won’t leave any openings like those one-dimensional fighters did.

Early rounds are crucial

“If he wants to give away early rounds against me, that’s stupid. “I’ll take it,” Roach said. “The next thing he looks up will probably be a drastic change in his game plan. He’ll obviously have to make up for that. Now it will either be a chase or a knockout. I won’t allow that.

“My best advice to him is that you better not give me a pre-check. It’s going to be a long night for you, buddy,” Roach said of his advice for Tank.