Gervonta Davis and Vasiliy Lomachenko won't fight for the lightweight titles after all. The two champions were close to a big unification bout, but talks fell apart recently.
Davis got here by knocking out Frank Martin to keep his WBA World Title. Lomachenko grabbed the vacant IBF belt when he beat George Kambosos Jr. Everything looked set for a clash of champions.
But Egis Klimas, who manages Lomachenko, said the Ukrainian fighter isn't ready right now.
"Loma is not in the mood right now. He doesn't have the motivation at the moment. He's taking off. He wants to spend more time with the family. With Loma, just money is not what motivates him. You can offer him millions, tens of millions of dollars – if he doesn't have motivation, he's not ready to prepare for the fight."
Bob Arum, who promotes Lomachenko, backed this up. He said family issues and stuff going on in Ukraine were behind the decision. Lomachenko had put his career on hold before to help out in the war against Russia.
But Calvin Ford, who coaches Davis, thinks money was the real problem. He told ES News:
"I wasn't shocked, because in his career he usually be the one who gets the money. It wasn't enough that he'd want it."
Ford also wondered if Lomachenko might fight Shakur Stevenson soon instead. The two had a recent run-in, and Ford thinks that could lead to something:
"I got other reasons – we just seen Shakur and them beefing, is he gonna come back and fight him before the end of the year? That's the question. He supposed to be on vacation ... Shakur's tryna figure out what he's gonna do. Everybody's tryna figue out what they're gonna do."
As for Davis, his coach says we'll have to wait and see:
"I know what Tank gonna do – he's gonna do Tank. When he ready he's gonna say 'yo, let's go.'"
Many fans wanted to see Davis fight Stevenson more than Lomachenko. But that won't happen this year either. For now, the lightweight division stays unsettled.
