World boxing champion Gervonta “Tank” Davis should be on a high right now after defeating his last opponent impressively and solidifying his box office and pay-per-view appeal. Instead, he is now sitting in a Baltimore jail after the judge discovered he broke his house arrest order to stay at a Four Seasons Hotel and a $3.4 million high-rise penthouse he bought in South Baltimore.
Once discovered, a judge ordered that he be immediately put in the “tank” for the expensive lapse in judgment. Baltimore Circuit Judge Althea M. Handy said she permitted the 28-year-old Davis, who had been living in Parkland, Florida, to serve the house arrest at the home of his longtime coach and trainer, Calvin Ford, in Baltimore.
She said Davis never asked to change the court-ordered location. It is unknown how Judge Handy learned where Davis had been staying.
When Mistakes Turn Into Jail
“The reason I didn’t want him in Florida is because this was not a holiday,” said Handy, per The Baltimore Banner. “He was serving time. And I was being considerate enough to let him do it on home detention.” She admitted that she did not want Davis to sit by the pool or hang out at the spa.
Davis’ attorney, Michael Tomko, wanted to redirect the blame to himself and, throughout the hearing repeatedly said so to the judge. Tomko said he and his client were caught off guard by the requirement to comply with the house arrest in Baltimore. Additionally, he attempted to explain that Davis’s coach, Calvin Ford has a one-bedroom house and couldn’t accommodate Davis’s 24/7 security team.
Tomko pleaded to the judge not to punish Davis because “people can attack famous people or hurt them or not want them to fight or win.”
What Did He Do?
Davis was driving a 2020 Lamborghini Urus on Nov. 5, 2020, after running a red light and hitting a 2004 Toyota Solara that injured four people, including a pregnant woman. Later he pleaded guilty to four traffic offenses and was sentenced to 90 days of home detention plus three years’ probation.
Davis is a former protegè of successful boxer-businessman Floyd Mayweather, Jr., who groomed the fighter to a perfect 29-0 professional boxing record with 27 knockouts. His recent defeat of Ryan Garcia with a body shot in the seventh round of a lightweight bought in Las Vegas solidified Davis as one of the world’s top draws in boxing and now a pay-per-view star.
The fight generated over 1.2 million pay-per-view buys and a $22.8 million gate at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. The financial haul is the fifth-biggest gate in Nevada’s lucrative combat sporting history, per Tapology.
Now Davis will have to halt training and decisions on future opponents until he gets out of custody in a deal that was a sweetheart opportunity if he would have asked the judge to commute the sentence to another local Baltimore residence. With the boxing world’s lightweight division on fire, Davis is pivotal, but his legal troubles are the only thing knocking him out of the ring.
