WBA Lightweight World Champion Gervonta “Tank” Davis (30-0-1, 28 KOs) retained his title with a 12-round majority draw against WBA Super Featherweight World Champion Lamont “The Reaper” Roach (25-1-2, 10 KOs) in the main event of a PBC Pay-Per-View event on Prime Video Saturday night from Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

In a chippy, trash-talking affair between two longtime friends, 30-year-old southpaw Davis got out to an early lead on the judges’ scorecards after six and then survived a furious rally from 29-year-old Roach in the second half of the tense battle.

Davis was never able to land any of his customary fight-changing bombs against his former amateur rival and found himself taking more punches than ever before in his career, as the determined Roach found repeated success, especially with the counter right hand.

In a hotly contested fight, the combatants were separated by three or less landed punches in nine of the twelve rounds even though Roach threw 121 more punches than Davis. Davis landed 6 more power punches than Roach, while Roach landed 15 more jabs than Davis.

There was a controversial moment in round nine when Davis ate a jab and then voluntarily took a knee before going to his corner to have grease wiped from his eye. Had that voluntary knee been ruled a knockdown, two of the judges’ scorecards would have swung Roach’s way.

Roach out-threw and slightly out-landed Davis, and closed the fight strong, out-landing Davis 16-9 in the final stanza. One judge scored the fight 115-113 for Davis, while the other two judges turned in identical 114-114 scorecards.

After the compelling fight, both combatants expressed a desire for a rematch.

“I just got my hair done two days ago and she put grease in my sh!t. So, the grease, when you sweat, it was coming into my face,” explained Davis. “I think I pulled it out in the last three rounds for sure. I was catching him with some clean shots. I feel I was breaking him down as the rounds were going on, but he kept coming so I didn’t want to make mistakes, and I kept it cautious.”

Asked why the fight was so competitive, Davis explained, “I made it competitive to be honest. For sure, Lamont is a great fighter. He got the skills like I said before and the punching power. It was a lesson learned. Shout out to Lamont Roach and his whole team. Hopefully we can run it back in New York. If not, all the best to Lamont Roach and his whole team.”

After the fight, it was revealed that Roach needed to win the final round on two judges’ cards to pull out the majority draw.