Featured Image Credit: Getty
Topics: Boxing, Gervonta Davis, Jake Paul
John McDougall
Jake Paul and Gervonta Davis have agreed a contentious change ahead of their exhibition bout later this year.
Davis is the WBA lightweight champion and will go up against YouTuber-turned-boxer Paul at the Kaseya Centre in Miami, Florida, on November 14, with the bout being broadcast live on Netflix.
The fight has come under severe criticism owing to the substantial weight difference between the pair, with Paul some 65 pounds heavier than Davis.
The YouTuber's past fights have drawn flak from many quarters, most notably his victory last November against Mike Tyson, who was around 30 years older than him.
Advert
Paul has 13 professional fights under his belt and has won 12 of them, with the only defeat coming at the hands of Tommy Fury in February 2023.
Davis meanwhile is undefeated in his professional boxing career with 30 wins from 31 fights.
His only draw came earlier this year against Lamont Roach Jr at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas, where he retained the WBA lightweight title he has held since 2023.
As the fight against is an exhibition, it means that Davis's title will not be on the line and if he is beaten by Paul, then the YouTuber will not go home with the belt.
At a pre-fight press conference publicising the bout, a disagreement came to the fore which Davis appeared to be unaware of before then and had led to a rule change for the fight in a few months from now.
Davis' trainer Calvin Ford questioned Paul over the size of the gloves being changed, after it was originally anticipated for the fighters to be donning 10 ounce ones.
He said: "Why y’all couldn’t take 10 [ounces], he had 8, already he’s giving up 4 ounces of the gloves, I gotta say this because y’all betting all this money, you understand what I’m saying?"
It led to a heated exchange between Paul and Davis, with the former claiming he wanted 10 ounce gloves all along, and the latter claiming he was not aware of the discrepancy.
Paul said: "You guys were the ones that wanted 12 ounce gloves, not me. I'll do eight!
"I'll do four, I'll do two ounces! I'll do bare knuckle."
Davis responded: "I wasn't aware of that, because I know that he can handle this stuff."
Paul replied: "So what do you want? 10 ounce, eight ounce? What do you want? "
Davis said in response: "If he wants that, I'm going to go with that. I wasn't aware.
Paul then said that the requirement for 12 ounce gloves came from Davis's camp, but the Tank denied that was the case.
Upon further questioning from Paul and a suggestion to use 10 ounce gloves, Davis said: "It doesn't matter to me."
Paul responded with: "It doesn't matter to him, so back to what I always wanted which was 10 ounces - great."
But Davis added: "You just made something clear that I didn't know."
Paul said: "10 ounces, let's do it. That's great, that's going to make it more exciting for the fans. Thank God, I wanted 10s really badly, let's do it."