Gervonta Davis has built a reputation for explosive knockouts, but that isn’t where his nickname came from.
Gervonta Davis suffered the first blemish of his career in his last fight, where he fought to a draw with Lamont Roach Jr.
Davis boasts a 90% KO rate, with 28 knockouts to his 31 fights. Davis, who considers himself the face of boxing, is often known by his nickname ‘Tank’ which many believe relates to his aggression and knockout power.
However, this is not the case, and the real origin of his nickname is far from anything you might think.
Gervonta Davis reveals bizarre origin of his nickname ‘Tank’
In an interview with Fight Hub TV from seven years ago, Tank spoke on his nickname when he was asked:
“Who gave you the nickname Tank and how’d you get it?”
Davis reveals the nickname has nothing to do with aggression, or sparring, or anything to do with boxing even, and is simply down to him having a large head when he was younger:
“Actually, one of my old coaches, he not with us no more, I was young and I had a real big head. He called me ‘Tankhead’.”
Davis dropped the latter half of the nickname, now going just by ‘Tank.’
Lamont Roach Jr. claims Gervonta Davis tried to bite him in fight fraught with controversy
In his last fight, Davis fought to a draw with Roach after a controversial moment where Davis took a knee was not ruled a knock-down. Davis and Roach were rivals in the amateurs.
The controversy doesn’t end there, though, as Roach claimed that Davis tried to bite him at one point in the fight:
“That’s when he tried to bite me. I ain’t even notice that until somebody said something.”
Fans were divided about the accusation, as many believe there are many other explanations for the footage and that Tank was not trying to bite Roach.
Either way the controversy around the knee is enough to warrant fans’ craving of a rematch.