Lightweight contender Frank ‘The Ghost’ Martin 18-0 (12) says fans and pundits are underestimating him if they think he doesn’t have the ability to defeat WBA 135-pound champion Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis when they meet at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada on Saturday night.
The 29-year-old Martin, who was born in Detroit but resides in Indianapolis, will be having his first world title bout when he faces Baltimore’s Davis, also 29, in an all-southpaw showdown.
“They don’t know what I got for him. They just know off of the few fights that they’ve seen. They don’t even know what’s in my arsenal or the punch that I pack,” Martin said to FightHype.
“Everybody has their own fighting style. If I want to get a guy up out of there, I can get them out of there.
“If I want to box, I can do that too. This fight is going to be based off of what’s presented in the ring come fight night.
“I have put myself in a mental spot where nothing was going to distract me. I know what this is about, throwing a guy off. Honestly, none of the noise that’s been going on is going to affect me when it comes to this fight right here.
“You’re going to see a new face in the 135 division. Y’all going to see an explosive fight. I’m not one of the guys that are coming to lay down. You’re going to see a dominant performance from Frank Martin come fight night.
“There’s no laying down. Everybody keeps asking me, ‘Are you going to take a dive?’ I’m not one of them. What you’re going to get from me is a true fighter who is coming out to win. I’m coming to get that W, so tune in on June 15th.”
Martin is coming off a close 12-round unanimous decision win over Armenian-born German Artem Harutyunyan 12-1 (7) last July. For Davis, it will be his first bout since knocking our Ryan Garcia 25-1 (20) in the seventh round in April last year.
Davis says Martin isn’t prepared for the kind of tricks and traps he plans on using against him.
“They don’t know until they get in there and wind up doing it and it happens,” Davis said to PPV.com. “They get caught and they’re like, ‘damn, I made a mistake’. They don’t know that I set a trap the whole time.
“[Martin] has the craft. It depends if I want him to be the boxer. That’s what makes me great. What makes me so great is I can make a fighter do what I want to do inside the ring. When he starts doing it, that’s when I can pick him apart.”
