Let’s just let him say it:

The contents of the tweet refer to 130-pound world boxing champion Gervonta Davis’ next fight, which is being planned for July in Baltimore, Mayweather Promotions CEO Leonard Ellerbe told reporters in Las Vegas last Saturday night.

“I’m very, very excited for him to bring a big fight home,” Ellerbe said of the 24-year-old who got his boxing start at the city-funded Upton Boxing Center in West Baltimore and is now 21-0 with 20 knockouts as a professional. “We’re working on it now and it’s going to be a great event.”

The details—like opponent, venue, and date—are not yet official, but BoxingScene.com, a leading news website of the sport, said Davis is expected to fight Saturday, July 27 at Royal Farms Arena in a bout that Showtime will broadcast.

A fight with Ukranian champion Vasyl Lomachenko, who competes one division above Davis as a lightweight and is arguably the top pound-for-pound fighter in the sport, is one that many boxing observers want to see, but the 15,000-seat “chicken box” doesn’t seem to be the place for what would be a high-profile, Vegas casino-headlining bout. Former champion Yuriorkis Gamboa and Ricardo Nunez were also named as potential opponents and seem more likely.

No matter who Davis fights, an event in Baltimore would mark an exciting homecoming and one of the area’s biggest sporting events of the year. The 5-foot-6 sparkplug hasn’t competed in a sanctioned bout here since he won the International Boxing Federation world super featherweight title in January 2017, and he hasn’t competed at all in Baltimore since his fourth pro fight six years ago.

That means this fight is likely to draw many local fans, who can also expect to see other area boxers on the undercard, including Davis’ Upton Boxing Center stablemate Lorenzo Simpson, a source tells Baltimore, another rising star who turned pro near the end of 2018.

Davis’ celebrity status has risen recently since he became a world champion two years ago with a win over Jose Pedraza at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. He has fought multiple times on television, including on the undercard of his mentor Floyd Mayweather’s multi-million dollar pay-per-view draw against mixed-martial-arts star Conor McGregor in August 2017. Davis also now has an eight-month-old daughter.

But he’s had setbacks, too. Davis failed to make weight before that undercard fight and lost his IBF world title, and has had a few run-ins with the law. He faced an assault charge from a childhood friend in 2017 that was later dropped, and he will appear in Virginia’s Fairfax County District Court on May 6 to face a misdemeanor assault charge in connection with an alleged altercation on February 17 at a Virginia mall. He addressed the issue here, saying “I’m eager to put this matter behind me and continue my career.”

In Davis’ last fight, he defended his World Boxing Association super featherweight championship with a first-round knockout of Mexico’s Hugo Ruiz on February 9 in Carson, California. It was a quick work night that’s been typical of the lefty power-puncher’s professional bouts.

After that match, Davis spoke about his desire to fight in front of his hometown fans sometime this year. It appears that time is this summer.

“It’s long overdue . . . I’m excited,” Davis said then. “We actually have a lot of great talent in Baltimore, so I would like for all my young brothers that’s coming up behind me to fight on my card, show that Baltimore, we have a lot of talent. I’m excited to fight in front of my people, excited to show that there’s not only the Ravens and the Orioles, that I’m also big like that.”

Simpson, 19, the nephew of former heavyweight champion of the world, Baltimore’s Hasim Rahman, went pro in December 2018 after a highly decorated amateur career in which he went 182-3.

As a pro, Simpson is 3-0 record with two knockouts and has made a few highlights already . . .

Before July, he will fight Ahmed Elbiali (18-1, 15 knockouts) on May 11 in a four-round light heavyweight bout in Fairfax, Virginia, that will air on Fox Sports 1.

We featured Davis—nicknamed “Tank,” and Simpson, his taller, younger protégé, who goes by “Truck”—in December 2016, chronicling the pair as part of a look at the Upton Boxing Center. It’s led by Calvin Ford, the former drug dealer turned neighborhood do-gooder, and inspiration for the character Cutty from The Wire, who mentored Davis throughout his formative years.

Ford continues to coach both Davis and Simpson, and plenty of other kids at 1901 Pennsylvania Avenue, who will no doubt be among those excited for the expected summer homecoming fight headlined by Davis, the city’s top boxing star.

When West Baltimore’s Gervonta “Tank” Davis won the 130-pound world title last year at Brooklyn’s Barclay’s Center, it was one of the most exciting bouts of  2017. Four months later, Davis stopped top-ranked contender Liam Walsh of England with a sensational third-round TKO in London.

Then, he stumbled. Not in the ring, but at his next weigh-in. Davis, scheduled to fight on the much-hyped Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor card this past August, came in two pounds over the 130-pound super featherweight limit and had to forfeit his title. 

Not that Davis needed to redeem himself—he’s already achieved so much in his young career—but he made sure everything was in order in his return to the Barclay’s Center late last month. The 22-year-old, now 20-0 with 19 KO, scored a dominant third-round TKO over Jesus Cuellar, who fell to 28-3, capturing his second world title in the process.

For Davis, who dropped Cuellar three times, it may have been his most impressive performance to date. And, now there’s talk of a fight against Ukrainian Vasyl Lomachenko, who also holds a world title, in what could become one of the bigger bouts of the year if it comes off.

—

Speaking of boxing, we also wanted to give a shoutout to the three former local pro fighters and seven others who were inducted into the Maryland Boxing Hall of Fame this past Sunday night at Michael’s Eighth Avenue.

Here’s the 2018 Hall of Fame class (from a Maryland Boxing Hall of Fame press release):

Boxer category

Ed Griffin – super lightweight, 1991-2000, 16-9, 5 KO’s, Baltimore, MD.

Les “White Lightning” Johnson – super welterweight, 1989-1994, 21-2, 15 KO’s, Rockville, MD. 

Mike “Little Rock” Ricasa (pictured below with Sugar Ray Leonard) – lightweight, 2004-2006, 7-2, three KO’s, Ellicott City, MD.

Trainer Category

Hal Chernoff – has been training fighters at the Main Street Gym in Salisbury, MD since 1993.

David Sewell – former pro boxer who turned to training fighters out of the Charm City Boxing and Sweet Science of Boxing Gym in Baltimore.

Lifetime Contribution

J.D. Brown – a valued member of the Sugar Ray Leonard camp, who also managed William Joppy during his three WBA Middleweight title reigns.

Ed Sauerhoff – former pro boxer who became a promoter.

Promoter

Scott Wagner – promoted the legendary Ballroom Boxing events at Michael’s Eighth Avenue from 1995-2010. Wagner died in February at the age of 49.

Amateur Category

Warren Boardley – a native of Baltimore, was 43-8 as an amateur and won the South Atlantic AAU Championship at 132 pounds.

Dominic Zannino – a native of Baltimore, was 26-6 as an amateur. Zannino won a South Atlantic title in the early 90’s and a regional title in 1998.

No doubt, Tank Davis will be honored alongside this group one day, too.

Gervonta “Tank” Davis Signs Deal with Under Armour
This is cool. World IBF junior lightweight champion Gervonta Davis, who just defended his title in convincing fashion Monday with a third-round TKO of Britain’s Liam Walsh, has inked a deal with Under Armour. To announce the partnership, Under Armour unveiled a billboard of Davis on I-95. It’s a particularly cool billboard, because Davis isn’t in the ring or even crouched with his fists up in a classic boxer’s pose. Instead, he’s standing in West Baltimore, looking contemplative but determined, row homes behind him, his elaborate neck tattoo in full view. The billboard reads: “Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis: Baltimore’s Own.”

Dennis Pitta hosts The Bachelorette viewing party.
This is the greatest thing we’ve ever seen. We’re not sure what our favorite part is, Justin Tucker admitting he’s the Whaboom guy (“I would hope that I’m not the Whaboom guy, but I think I might be the Whaboom guy”); Joe Flacco doubling over in laughter as a be-aproned Dennis Pitta brings out his freshly made cinnamon buns; or Pitta proving that real men can love reality TV dating shows when he says, “A lot of football players wants to act like they’re too cool and tough to watch shows like this. Not us.” This is pure gold.

Jones breaks Camden Yards home run record
It hasn’t been a particularly great few weeks for the Orioles (understatement alert), but there is at least one reason to celebrate: Adam Jones, team captain, center fielder, Twitter foodie, and all-around awesome dude has broken the home run record at Camden Yards. He hit his 125th Camden Yards dinger on Monday, a no-doubt-about-it blast to left field against the Twins. (The Orioles went on to lose the game in frustrating fashion, but let’s focus on the positive.) Congrats, Adam!

 Justin Jackson is back
You can exhale now, Terps fans. Forward Justin Jackson, arguably the strongest member of a trio of superb freshmen who helped lead the Terps to the NCAA tournament last season, has removed his name from draft consideration and will be returning to the team next season. Whew!

Michael Phelps teasing us again?
Is it weird that we don’t want Michael Phelps in the 2020 Olympics? It’s not that we don’t love the guy—we do. We just don’t want to mess with the perfection of what he’s already accomplished. That being said, dude keeps “joking” about a 2020 run. First, on April Fool’s he tweeted. “Some goals/dreams you just can’t get rid of…been doing a lot of thinking n I’ve decided that I’m going 2 make another comeback! #tokyo2020.” Okay, that was funny. But then, just this week he posted a photo of himself and fellow Olympiad Grant Hackett to Instagram, with the caption, “Just two old dudes getting back in the pool…2020?” Then he followed that up with a Tweet that linked to the ’Gram post and added, “A little rusty . . . nah, still got it!” One joke is funny. Two jokes are intriguing. But three jokes? We’re just saying.

Saturday night is Showtime.
West Baltimore’s Gervonta “Tank” Davis won the 130-pound world title in January at Brooklyn’s Barclay’s Center in one of the most exciting bouts of the year, finishing off Jose Pedraza with a thrilling seventh round KO. This weekend, the charismatic fighter travels to London for the first defense of his crown against No. 1 challenger Liam Walsh. We can’t wait for Davis fill Royal Farms Arena at some point in the future, but for now we will catch the action on Showtime, scheduled for Saturday at 6 p.m.

Explained: How the O’s do it.
FiveThirtyEight, the popular politics, sports, science and health, economic and culture blog for numbers nerds, recently dedicated a post attempting to uncover how our beloved Orioles keep beating the experts gloom and doom predictions of failure each season. As baseball columnist Neil Paine notes the O’s have far exceeded the expectations of forecasters over the past half-dozen seasons, by as much as 21, 16, and 12 games in recent seasons. What did he find? Buck Showalter, basically. And the O’s bullpen, which, of course, he reveals has been wonderfully managed by Buck. It’s a case of researchers collecting the data on what every O’s fans already knows based on our own subjective observations. We do appreciate the effort.

Boys’ Latin Tops St. Paul’s in 100th regular season match.
Talk about historic rivalries. Perennial Baltimore lacrosse powerhouses Boys’ Latin and St. Paul’s met for the 100th time this week and the occasion lived up to its billing, with Boys’ Latin rallying from a 3-0 deficit, and then holding on to win a 10-9 nail biter. The win pushed Boys’ Latin overall margin in the series to 52-47-1, according to reporting by the The Sun’s longtime high school sportswriter, Glenn Graham, in a rivalry that began in 1933.

There is a little horse race in Baltimore this weekend. 
This is setting up as a nice duel between Derby-winner and odds-on favorite Always Dreaming in the No. 4 position and Classic Empire, at 3-1 bet, in next to him in the starting gate at No. 5. Goes without saying that Preakness is not to be missed, but especially this year.

O’s catchers deliver more than flowers for Mom.
Oriole catcher Francisco Peña, before a rare start Mother’s Day weekend, promised he’d hit a home run for his mom. And he did better than that—blasting two round-trippers. Which means the bar has been set awfully high for every ballplayer ever going forward. That said, O’s catcher Caleb Joseph went deep the following day, on the actual Mother’s Day, as did Chris Davis. Not bad a compliment to the usual flowers, candy, and card.

Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti says team will continue to pass on players with domestic violence history. 
Watching from afar, it was unclear who asked the question during the Ravens’ annual State of the Team press conference on Tuesday in Owings Mills, but kudos. It came not in these exact words, but team owner Steve Bisciotti answered as if it did. More than two years after video surfaced that turned Ray Rice from a loveable small-sized hero to a toxic, unemployable running back, are the Ravens still staying 100 yards away from drafting or signing players with questionable pasts, or nebulous “character issues”?

“Character is a pretty big pot,” Bisciotti said, “but some people we’re going to take off our board. That’s the way it goes. Domestic abuse? Not taking them. Kansas City is in the playoffs, partly because of a guy they took a chance on. Will we take chances like that again? I don’t think so.”

In the razor-thin, competitive, and big money NFL environment, the approach can make a difference. The Ravens had an 8-8 record with nine games decided by six or fewer points and . . . we all know what happened in the Steelers game on Christmas. As the Ravens self-made billionaire owner noted, Chiefs rookie wide receiver Tyreek Hill, who in 2015 pleaded guilty to beating his pregnant girlfriend while in college at Oklahoma State, has been a key player as Kansas City grabbed the second seed in the AFC postseason. In the name of winning, teams take calculated, if not morally questionable, risks. “It does [come up] all the time,” Bisciotti said, like with talented Oklahoma running back Joe Mixon in December (who, like Rice, was caught on tape).

The Ravens aren’t going there. Even with “the pitchforks,” out from fans, after a second straight playoff-less year, as the owner acknowledged during the 30-question, 70-minute media session. Bisciotti, general manager Ozzie Newsome, and coach John Harbaugh primarily fielded questions about how the team can improve.

“We need to get more out of Joe [Flacco],” Bisciotti said in one of the answers, which were typically measured and reasonable, and also included mention of a potential ticket price increase for next season.

West Baltimore boxer Gervonta Davis gets first world championship shot Saturday. 
As we wrote in the December issue, 23-year-old West Baltimore-native and up-and-coming boxer Gervonta “Tank” Davis was waiting for his first world championship title shot. He will get it on Saturday night at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, against Puerto Rico’s Jose Pedraza, the IBF super featherweight (130-pound) champion.

Davis, a relatively small 5-foot-6 lefty, is pound-for-pound strong with amazingly quick hands and a remarkable backstory. He trains out of Upton Boxing Gym on Pennsylvania Ave., under the mentorship of coach Calvin Ford—the inspiration for The Wire character, Cutty—and has endured all kinds of rough situations, with drug-addicted parents for starters. Ford’s been a father figure, Upton a refuge.

“I dedicate this fight to my team,” Davis said Thursday at a press conference in New York. “I’m no Mike Tyson, Floyd Mayweather, or Sugar Ray Leonard. I’m Gervonta Davis, and on January 14th, I will become a world champion.”

Saturday night’s fight will air live at 9:30 p.m. on Showtime. Watch early. Davis usually makes quick work of opponents. He’s 16-0 with 15 knockouts, 13 coming within the first four rounds, and is promising something similar this time around against the more experienced, taller Pedraza. If Davis wins, he will be Baltimore’s fourth world champion boxer; the others are Joe Gans, who owned the world lightweight title during the time of segregation more than 100 years ago, Vincent Pettway (1994) and Hasim Rahman (2001).

Orioles have a minicamp in Florida.

It’s not much, but just the sight of the Orioles black-and-orange uniforms under sunny skies makes winter feel a tad warmer. (And it really was yesterday!)

The start of spring training is the traditional sign that baseball season is near. Minicamp? Not so much. Not many major league teams even have them, but the Orioles have the last few years under Buck Showalter, who finds the time valuable. He and a small gang of players had a three-day camp in Sarasota, Florida, this week, mainly to evaluate those coming off injuries, and to look at a few of the organization’s minor league pitchers who are a bit more off the radar, but may be factors come the six-month, 162-game slog that is a major league baseball season.

Minicamp did not appear too stressful for veteran players like Chris Tillman, the O’s top hurler. Guys like him aren’t the focus. Select prospects are. Here Tillman, alongside Showalter and the team’s new pitching coach, Roger McDowell, watches young pitchers Garrett Cleavinger and Brian Gonzalez throw.

One pitcher not there? Yovanni Gallardo, who the Orioles traded to Seattle last Friday in exchange for corner outfielder Seth Smith. Gallardo went 6-8 last year with a 5.32 ERA in 23 starts, and spent a good amount of time on the disabled list with shoulder issues. Smith is a veteran, 34-year-old left-hand hitting outfielder, something the O’s needed (with Mark Trumbo gone, for now). Last season, while his batting average wasn’t spectacular (.249), Smith played in 137 games, had an on-base percentage of .342, hit 16 home runs, and a career-high 63 RBIs. Fun fact: Smith, a Mississippi native and multi-sport athlete, was Eli Manning’s backup quarterback at Ole Miss in the early 2000s.

Just 32 days until spring training and less than two months until Opening Day at Camden Yards. Not that we’re counting.

Terps win, Terps win!
With a 75-72 win over Indiana on national TV on Tuesday night, the Maryland men’s basketball team improved to 15-2 and 3-1 in the Big Ten, and should enter national top-25 polls early next week. The hero of their latest triumph? That would be 6-foot-7, 190-pound ginger-headed freshman guard Kevin Huerter. Call him Big Red. The former Mr. Basketball from New York, who had a late growth spurt in high school, sank a go-ahead three-pointer with just under two minutes left then grabbed a rebound and fed fellow freshman Anthony Cowan with a long pass to give Maryland a three-point lead with 1:12 to go. Fight on, turtles!