By Norm Frauenheim –
Two faces represent more than a couple of possibilities as a New Year begins to unfold Saturday night in the first significant card of 2023.
There’s Gervonta Davis.
And there’s Jaron Ennis.
In Davis, there’s power, more than enough to dominate and destroy. He’s dangerous, a many-edged dynamic that imperils challengers and often himself.
In Ennis, there’s potential that’s been evident for years, yet is just now beginning to unfold in a way that suggests he could be a game changer, an emerging force with talent enough to reinvigorate a stalled, stale game. Ennis is boxing’s shiny new model. He’s suffered no losses, no scars and — so far – no adversity.
Hints at their possible impact on 2023 are very much part of a Showtime pay-per-view card (6 pm ET/9 p pm PT), first with Ennis against unknown Ukrainian welterweight Karen Chukhadzhian and then Davis in a lightweight title defense against Hector Luis Garcia at Washington D.C.’s Capital One Arena.
Both said the same thing Thursday at a live-streamed news conference. They wanted to send a message, make a statement. But their motivation differs.
For Davis (27-0, 25 KOs) and his trainer Calvin Ford, the card’s main event against Garcia (16-0, 10 KOs) represents a chance to answer the skeptics. There are many, especially since Davis’ arrest for alleged domestic violence in Florida on Dec. 27.
The alleged victim, the mother of Davis’ daughter, recanted the allegations on social media. But Twitter accounts, which have never been confused with accountability, continue to buzz with trolls and taunts.
“Gasoline,’’ Ford called them in an apparent reference to the anger that Davis will take into the ring, a platform more violent than social.
Davis’ smoldering anger is a reason people watch. It is Mike Tyson-like. He always seems to be at the edge of some kind of explosion, fueled by emotion or punching power But Thursday he smiled and joked, symptoms perhaps to a proverbial calm before the storm. He was asked about distractions.
“This is my job,’’ said Davis, who has been projected to fight Ryan Garcia later in 2023 in what looms to be one of the year’s biggest bouts. “I’ve been doing this since I was seven years old. Just a hump in my road. I just got to get through this fight and then go to the next fight. It’s just humps in the road that we all go through in life.’’
It was an answer meant for the questions about whether Davis can keep his mind on the business at hand, despite the personal turmoil. He’s expected to beat Garcia. Odds, ranging from 12-1 to 14-1, favor Davis.
But Hector Garcia’s experience indicates he has a chance. He’s a former Olympian from the Dominican Republic. He stunned previously unbeaten Chris Colbert in February at 130-pounds. At 135, however, he could encounter problems with Davis’ documented power. But don’t underestimate him, he said. And don’t confuse him with that other Garcia, the one named Ryan.
“The real Garcia is right here,’’ Hector said Wednesday. “I’m the real Garcia.’’
For Ennis (29-0, 27 KOs), the question is a different one. His unmarked face is a face for the future. It’s unlined and unlimited He’s also unburdened by the sort of turmoil that follows Davis, who faces a Feb. 16 court appearance on hit-and-run charges in Baltimore, his hometown.
“I’m looking to make a statement to the world,’’ Ennis said, whose streak of 19 successive knockouts has been interrupted only by a no-contest forced by a head butt.
For now, at least, that world has been frustrated by the failure of talks that would have led to a 147-pound showdown between Terence Crawford and Errol Spence Jr.
No Crawford-Spence was the story, perhaps the epitaph, of last year. But this is a New Year, maybe Ennis’ year.
“I know Errol Spence Jr. and Terence Crawford are holding up the division right now,’’ Ennis said Wednesday at a public workout. “But whatever way I can get my hands on the belts, I’ll be ready. I just want to fight. I’m young, hungry and I’m going to keep shining and demolishing these guys they put in front of me.
“Getting knockouts gives the fans what they want and makes them keep gravitating toward me. As long as I keep doing what I’m doing, my fan base is just going to grow.
“I know Spence says he’s the ‘big fish,’ but we like to go fishing. If I have to sit on the side and ride a jet ski for a while, that’s okay for now. You know what happens when they bring a fish to land.
“They squirm.”
The lingering question is whether Spence might squirm his way out of a date with Ennis by moving up in weight, from 147-pounds to 154.
In acronym-speak, an expected Ennis victory over Chukhadzhian (21-1, 11 KOs) would put him in line for the IBF belt held by Spence. Ennis would become the so-called mandatory challenger. But mandatory sometimes means mess in boxing’s Balkans.
Still, an Ennis victory might help exasperated fans begin to move beyond the failed Crawford-Spence talks. Translation: Everybody can quit squirming.
