After having stayed off the ring for 10 months without fighting or making a defence for the WBA Super World Super Featherweight Title as a result of legal issues and problems with his promoters (Mayweather Promotion), Gervonta Davis braced this fight with all he has and delivered a sweet round one KO to Hugo Ruiz.
Davis earlier before winning the WBA Super title was stripped off the IBF title after failing to make weight for the strap in 2017. This resulted in a lot of set backs and problems that accounted for his long 10-month inactivity.
“I’m very confident that I will be more active this year, I have three, probably four fights lined up this year. I’m happy with my team, and we move on to the next [fight]. We’re coming to Baltimore. We’re going home, baby” Davis Said in his post fight interview.
Davis 24, (21-0, 20 KOs) was originally billed to make his defence against the very popular and big name three divisional champion Abner Mares but suffered a retina detachment a week to the fight during a sparring session and then had to pull out of the fight to correct the eye defect.
Hugo Ruiz was quickly arranged as a replacement to save the card. He accepted the call to move up his division from featherweight to the super featherweight division to take the fight with Davis.
The fight started with an expected aggression from Davis who comes into this fight as the favourite.
Ruiz 30, (39-5, 33KO) was advantaged with regards to height and reach, Davis came at Ruiz with a gifted uncommon combination punches and speed right from the sound of the bell.
Davis landed a straight left on the face of Ruiz and followed with right hook and left uppercut. This broke Ruiz’s nose and took to building defence to extricate him from more damages. Davis did not stopped but rather unleashed avalanche of punches having noticed that Ruiz is hurt. Ruiz finally went down on his knees with blood oozing from his nose.
Referee Jack Reiss after counting 8 without any response from Ruiz but rather with his head down waved his hand and called off the fight.
Davis quickly beat his chest symptomatic of Chimpanzees and shouted “yes, yes”, climbed the robes with his hands up high as a champion.
” l knew it was coming when I touched him with the jab, I saw his arms was in front of his face, so if threw a hook or uppercut, it was right in line” said Davis.
At the Dignity Health Sport Park, Carson-California, Davis handed a quick round one KO to Hugo Ruiz on a ShowTime televised main event and earned $1m in the end.
CompuBox Stats scored for Davis 11 of 56 punches (20%) and Ruiz 3 of 19 punches (16%).
In a co-feature card Mario Barrios and Richard Zamora in a super lightweight contest. Barrios handed Zamora a round 4 KO.
Former super lightweight champion Javier Fortuna also won a unanimous decision against Sharif Bogere in a lightweight fight and also Erickson Lubin also dropped former IBF super welterweight champion Ishe Smith four times en route to a round 3 KO.