Boxing

Gervonta 'Tank' Davis vs Lamont Roach PPV Buys Revealed

The PPV buys for the March 1 fight between Gervonta "Tank" Davis and Lamont Roach Jr. tell an interesting story.
Grant Young|
WBA Lightweight Champion Gervonta "Tank" Davis faces off WBA Super Featherweight Champion Lamont Roach on February 28, 2025.
WBA Lightweight Champion Gervonta "Tank" Davis faces off WBA Super Featherweight Champion Lamont Roach on February 28, 2025. | IMAGO / ZUMA Press Wire

While the March 1 fight between Gervonta "Tank" Davis and Lamont Roach Jr. for Davis' WBA lightweight belt wasn't receiving a ton of hype heading into the fight, it's certainly getting a ton of attention after it ended.

This is owed to the controversy stemming from the fight's ninth round, where Davis took a knee out of nowhere in the middle of the ring before walking to his corner and getting his face wiped off by a member of his team.

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Despite this infraction (which is grounds for disqualification) and the knee (which should have been ruled a knockdown), Davis wasn't penalized for either and therefore managed to escape with a majority draw decision.

One has to feel for Roach, as many believe he was robbed of the biggest victory in his life. However, if there's a silver lining to this, Roach's notoriety has increased tenfold, and now a rematch appears guaranteed.

Davis entered this fight as a -1600 favorite against Roach; which, in other words, shows that few people believed this was going to be a competitive fight. And per a March 20 report from boxing insider Dan Rafael, the fight's PPV numbers reflect a relative apathy toward watching this fight live.

"The Davis-Roach PBC on Prime Video pay-per-view generated at least 260,000 buys, sources with knowledge of the total told Fight Freaks Unite, with one source pinpointing it at 262,000," Rafael wrote in the report.

For context, the Devin Haney vs. Ryan Garcia fight in April 2024 did approximately 300,000 PPV buys, according to Oscar De La Hoya. And according to Tapology, Canelo's fight with Edgar Berlanga on September 14, 2024, generated 650,000 PPV buys.

This is to say that Davis vs Roach didn't perform great in terms of PPV buys. But the rematch is sure to do much, much better numbers than 260,000.

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Grant Young
GRANT YOUNG

Grant Young is a Staff Writer for On SI’s Boxing, New York Mets, Indiana Fever, and Women’s Fastbreak sites. Before joining SI in 2024, he wrote for various boxing and sports verticals such as FanBuzz and NY Fights. Young has a bachelor’s degree in marketing and a master’s degree in creative writing with an emphasis on sports nonfiction from the University of San Francisco, where he played five seasons of Division 1 baseball. He fought Muay Thai professionally in Thailand in 2023, loves a good essay, and is driven crazy trying to handle a pitpull puppy named Aura. Young lives in San Diego and was raised in the San Francisco Bay Area.