Gervonta Davis gives his take on the new “Franchise Title” thing!
Recently, the entire boxing community had to endure yet another mind-boggling decision by the WBC. They provided unified lightweight champion Vasiliy Lomachenko with the useless label of “franchise champion.”
The move came with unsurprisingly heavy scrutiny. Reason being, yet again it elevated the interim title holder to full champion status. The problem here is it devalues the accolade of earning the belt in the ring, the right way.
Gervonta “Tank” Davis (22-0, 21ko), in a social media tweet, expressed how he feels about the franchise belt.
However, one can make the argument that the Baltimore native doesn’t have much room to talk. The former two-time junior lightweight champion is believed to soon face former featherweight champion Yuriorkis Gamboa for the WBA regular title.
This could be looked at as a downgrade when many inside the boxing community don’t understand and have little respect for the regular title.
Furthermore, a case can be made that all these second tier titles have a meaningless use to them lately. For example, the WBC Interim/Silver titles are supposed to name a number one contender. However, on numerous instances, the status has either never been enforced or someone ranked below was given the mandatory position. It’s worth pointing out that holding some of these second tier belts help establish a baseline for explaining a fighter’s ranking.
In short, many may agree with the former champion. However, the move by the WBC shouldn’t hurt Team Davis’ ability to possibly get a fight with the Current Unified/WBA “Super” Champion Lomachenko.
By: Garrisson Bland
