The Hall of Famer attempted to fix boxing’s biggest problem.
Shannon Sharpe wants to see the best fighters fight one another.
Simple enough, right?
Sharpe went on a near five-minute rant on his Nightcap podcast with Chad Johnson, on the heels of Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis’ 12-round majority draw against Lamont Roach Jr. on Saturday night.
A draw that was seen as controversial as Davis retained his WBA lightweight championship.
Davis took a knee in the ninth round after Roach landed a jab, however referee Steve Wilkes decided not to score a knockdown for Roach.
An omission that would have likely have been the deciding factor in giving Roach the win.
Davis said the reason he took the knee was because grease had dripped into his eye, from his hair.
It was an odd bout that led into Sharpe’s rant.
He repeatedly said he was tired of boxers ‘ducking’ each other and not pitting the best versus the best.
Sharpe is wanting not only Tank, but all the elite tier of boxers, to fight one another.
“You got Vasyl Lomachenko, you got Shakur Stevenson, you got Devin Haney, you got Ryan Garcia, you got Tank, you got Roach,” Sharpe said.
“Come on man, make these damn fights happen.
“Stop ducking and dodging each other. They should be fighting each other.”
Sharpe went on to give the boxers of the 1970s and 1980s credit for consistently boxing against one another.
“Hearns fought Leonard, he fought Hagler, he fought Durán,” Sharpe added.
“Durán fought those guys. Those guys fight.”
Sharpe pointed to one man in particular who he believes has done a disservice to the sport.
One Floyd Mayweather Junior.
“I love Floyd, but I hate what Floyd did to the game of boxing because everybody’s trying to protect that 0,” Sharpe said.
“Ain’t nobody wanna take chances?
“Your purse is looking like that because you’re not fighting nobody. They’re not getting 1.5 million like Floyd, so stop trying to think that you’re gonna be Floyd.
“Look at Tyson, go back and look at those guys.
“Those guys fought. At the end of the day you got to fight, you got to fight.
“I want you to get your money, but ain’t nobody gonna be tuning in to watch you box just anybody.
“They want to see Lopez and Shakur. They want to see Tank and Shakur, or Lopez.”
Sharpe put an exclamation point on his entire rant by explaining the reason that some of the purses aren’t what the boxers want them to be, are because they aren’t fighting who they should be fighting.
Put the best against the best, and the purse will be high, is essentially what Sharpe said.
“Why isn’t the pursue where it needs to be? Because they don’t want to see them jokers fight nobody,” he said.
“They want to see them fight the best. And the purse will be there. I’m not paying you $25 million to fight some guy that’s 13-5 and you’re 27-0.”