By Keith Idec

NEW YORK – Lou DiBella knows better than to think Jose Pedraza will handle Gervonta Davis with ease.

Pedraza’s promoter does believe that his fighter has numerous advantages over Davis as their 12-round fight for Pedraza’s IBF world super featherweight title approaches. DiBella is thankful, too, because Davis’ brashness has motivated Pedraza to prove the 22-year-old prospect is in over his head when they meet Saturday night at Barclays Center in Brooklyn (Showtime).

“He can punch,” DiBella said of Davis. “You’ve gotta worry a little bit about it because he can punch. He’s a strong kid. Talks a lot of smack. Nasty. Got that nasty edge to him that sometimes benefits fighters in the ring and sometimes makes people dislike you. But either way, it could make you popular.

“I see my boy Pedraza more animated, more up, more excited, more confident than he’s ever been. I think he’s got way more experience, I think he’s a better boxer and I think he’s been in there with much better people. So I give Jose a big edge. It’s a tough fight, though. I’m not gonna say it’s not a tough fight. You’ve got a Floyd Mayweather protégé who can punch like a mule. That’s a tough fight.”

Mayweather Promotions represents Davis (16-0, 15 KOs), a decorated amateur who’ll take a gigantic step up in competition when he squares off against Pedraza. Puerto Rico’s Pedraza (22-0, 12 KOs) will make the third defense of the IBF 130-pound championship he won by out-boxing Russia’s Andrey Klimov on his way to a 12-round, unanimous-decision victory in June 2015.

DiBella believes the 27-year-old Pedraza’s successive 12-round victories over Klimov (19-3, 9 KOs), Edner Cherry (35-7-2, 19 KOs, 1 NC) and Stephen Smith (24-3, 14 KOs) have helped better prepare him for this stage than his powerful opponent. Davis has knocked out all but one of his professional foes, but only two of his 16 fights have been scheduled for 10 rounds and neither of those opponents were ranked contenders.

That hasn’t stopped the confident Baltimore native from getting under Pedraza’s skin.

“Jose’s sort of a mellow guy, but he ain’t gonna be punked by anybody,” DiBella said. “And I think that Gervonta did a good job getting him out of his shell, because I’ve never seen Pedraza this pissed off and this ready to hurt somebody. He’s been really fired up. And if you’ve been following him on Twitter, he’s been really jacked up for this fight.”

The Pedraza-Davis bout will open Showtime’s doubleheader Saturday night at 9:30 p.m. ET/6:30 p.m. PT. In the main event, IBF super middleweight champion James DeGale (23-1, 14 KOs), of London, will face WBC world super middleweight title-holder Badou Jack (20-1-2, 12 KOs), of Stockholm, Sweden.

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.