By Keith Idec

NEW YORK – Gervonta Davis was more than ready for this steep step up in competition.

The undefeated fighter from Baltimore brutalized previously undefeated Jose Pedraza and won by seventh-round technical knockout to take the IBF world super featherweight championship Saturday night before a crowd of 10,128 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. The faster, stronger Davis controlled most of the action and remained composed before a drilling Pedraza with a crushing right hook that knocked the former champion under the bottom rope, near a neutral corner.

A stunned Pedraza got up, but referee Ricky Gonzalez decided the battered boxer shouldn’t continue. Gonzalez stopped the scheduled 12-rounder at 2:36 of the seventh round.

Showtime televised the Pedraza-Davis bout as the co-feature before IBF champion James DeGale and WBC world champion Badou Jack met in a super middleweight title unification fight.

With Floyd Mayweather Jr., Davis’ promoter and mentor, cheering and shouting directions from ringside, the 22-year-old Davis (17-0, 16 KOs) proved he has the star potential Mayweather and manager Al Haymon have long seen in him by dominating Puerto Rico’s Pedraza (22-1, 12 KOs).

“It means a lot,” said Davis, who was ahead, 59-55, on all three scorecards when the fight was stopped. “Us coming out on top, it means a lot. And also have a great promoter, a great boxer backing me, it feels great.”

Mayweather was beyond proud to add another world champion to his promotional company’s stable.

“For this training camp, I didn't want to be around him,” Mayweather said. “I didn't want to talk to him. I wanted him to focus so he could go out there and be the best, and that's what he did tonight.”

When asked by Showtime’s Jim Gray if Davis is “the future of boxing,” Mayweather replied, “Abso-f*cking-lutely!”

Before Saturday night, only one of Davis’ first 16 professional fights lasted beyond the sixth round. But Davis displayed as soon as the fight started that he was beyond prepared for the biggest fight of his career.

“I’ve been had experience,” Davis said. “I was telling y’all that. Y’all didn’t believe me. In this camp, I studied ‘Pretty Boy’ Floyd, not ‘Money.’ I studied ‘Pretty Boy’ Floyd. Just stay composed. He caught me with good shots. I took it and dished it back out. I showed I’m a real dog.”

Davis hit Pedraza repeatedly with left uppercuts in the first round, which the 2012 national Golden Gloves champion won handily.

Pedraza pushed the action to start the second round, but Davis eventually landed an array of uppercuts and body blows to take control of that three-minute period as well.

The action got a tad dirty early in the third round, which caused Gonzalez to warn both boxers for hitting each other behind the head. Davis continued connecting with his left uppercut in the third as Pedraza struggled to find ways to move forward without eating Davis’ power shots.

Davis controlled the action similarly in the fourth round, before Pedraza rallied to start the fifth. He began landing straight left hands as a seemingly tiring Davis tried to cover up.

Davis eventually began unloading his own power shots later in the fifth round and the back-and-forth action drew screams from the crowd. A resurgent Davis regained control of the fight in the sixth round, during which he drilled Pedraza with a left uppercut, left body blow and left hook that affected the defending champion.

A New York State Athletic Commission physician examined Pedraza closely before he would allow the seventh round to begin. Davis maintained control of the fight in that round as he continued brutalizing Pedraza’s body and later landed the impressive punch that ended it.

“I felt that he was wearing down,” Davis said. “I caught him one time in the body, you know, he backed up. My team told me to go back to the body. Floyd and my team said, ‘Stay under control and go back to the body.’ ”

The 27-year-old Pedraza out-pointed Russia’s Andrey Klimov (19-3, 9 KOs) to win the IBF 130-pound championship in June 2015. He defended it twice before losing to Davis on Saturday night. In those two 12-round bouts, Pedraza defeated Edner Cherry (35-7-2, 19 KOs, 1 NC) by split decision and Stephen Smith (24-3, 14 KOs) by unanimous decision.

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