In the 1984 World Billiards Championship Davis lost to Eddie Charlton 1436–829 in the semi-finals. After this time billiard events increasingly changed structure to a series of games of 400 or 150 points. Davis was always less happy with this structure; with this and with his advancing years, Davis fared less well at the game after this time. In the 1985 World Championship he did defeat Clive Everton 3–1 in round one, but fell 3–0 to Australian Robby Foldvari in the quarter-finals. The following year (still seeded third) he lost 3–0 to Bob Close, who was making his professional debut. In 1987 he reached the quarter-finals of both the UK Billiards Championship and the World Championship, but lost on both occasions to Robby Foldvari. Davis's last entry in the World Billiards Championship came in 1992, but with the main competition to be played in India, he did not play his first-round match against David Barton. Davis did enter the 1993 UK Billiards Championship, but did not play his first-round match against Ian Williamson and he also scratched from the Radiant Grand Slam Second Leg where he was due to play David Edwards that same month.