by Keith Idec
NEW YORK – Gervonta Davis knows how Vasily Lomachenko feels.
Lomachenko turned down a deal for a lightweight title unification fight against Davis in the summer as the heavyweight champion contemplated retirement. The 36-year-old Lomachenko is still an active boxer, but the Ukrainian southpaw has not yet decided whether he will return to the ring in 2025.
Davis revealed at a press conference Tuesday in Brooklyn that he, too, is considering retiring from the sport. The 30-year-old Baltimore native has rarely talked about retiring from boxing, which is why his announcement surprised many of those who attended the event to promote the American superstar’s pay-per-view main event against Lamont Roach at the Barclays Center.
“After next year I’m out of it,” Davis told Miguel Flores, the premier boxing champion, who was moderating the press conference. “Out of sports.”
Davis (30-0, 28 KOs) also stated that he intends to fight three times in 2025 before calling it quits. In addition to boxing Roach (25-1-1, 10 KOs), Davis mentioned Ryan Garcia, whom he knocked out in the seventh round of their April 2023 bout, and former fully unified lightweight champion Devin Haynie as potential opponents.
The left-handed Davis has not mentioned Lomachenko as an option for his second fight next year, possibly because he doesn’t think Lomachenko (18-3, 12 KOs) will box again.
“I should have fought Lomachenko, shouldn’t I?” Davis said. “And um, like he said he was retired and stuff like that. I feel like we’ve been at this for so long that we’ve all gotten tired of it. It’s like we’ve been beating our bodies for so long. But it’s important that now there are situations like this, like the (Roach) story, which reignites.
Davis, who made his professional debut in February 2013, was seriously considering what he would do if he stopped boxing.
“I’d probably prefer to build my real estate portfolio,” Davis said, “and I guess I’m trying to get out of the limelight, you know?”
The WBA lightweight champion opened as a 16-1 favorite to defeat Roach, who moved up from the junior 130-pound lightweight limit to challenge Davis for his WBA 135-pound title. Davis hasn’t competed three times in a calendar year since 2019, when he knocked out Hugo Ruiz, Ricardo Nunez and Yuriorkis Gamboa.