Fernando Vargas says, “Nobody knows who Keyshawn Davis is,” and he needs to get his name up to where fans know him before he would consider letting him fight one of his three sons.
The former two-time junior middleweight champion Vargas states that the lightweight contender Keyshawn (12-0, 8 KOs) wouldn’t be recognized if he went into a restaurant or a stadium. Fernando says that fans would know who his 24-year-old son, Amado Vargas, but NOT Keyshawn.
Nobody Knows Keyshawn
Top Rank is going to need to do something drastic with Keyshawn to turn him into a star because the way he’s performed and the poor matchmaking has left him no better off than he was when he first turned pro in 2021.
Keyshawn looks like a washout, a fighter who has failed to achieve what his promoters had expected after he won a silver medal in the 2020 Olympics.
They should throw Keyshaw in with one of the sharks like Andy Cruz, and if he loses, quit him like a bad habit. I know it would hurt for Top Rank to admit that they whiffed by signing him rather than the guy who beat him in the Olympics, Andy Cruz, but no one is perfect.
“The thing is this. Nobody knows who Keyshawn Davis is. So, he needs to get his name up,” said Fernando Vargas to Fighthype when asked about Keyshawn Davis fighting Amado Vargas.
What Fernando doesn’t say is HOW Top Rank can get Keyshawn’s “name up.” I know the answer, but I don’t think they want to take the risk with Keyshawn and watch him lose repeatedly. They’re stuck on the Edgar Berlanga-style matchmaking, feeding him tomato cans, hoping the casuals will be impressed enough to become fans.
Fernando is right. No one outside of the ultra-hardcore boxing fans knows who Keyshawn is, and they’re excited when he fights. There’s never been any buzz from fans when Keyshawn is fighting because his fighting style is not entertaining.
Keyshawn’s last four opponents:
– Gustavo Lemos
– Miguel Madueno
– Jose Pedraza: 35
– Nahir Albright
“He and Keyshawn walk into a restaurant. Who are they going to know? Are they going to know Amado or Keyshawn? That’s all I’ve got to say. I’m not saying we won’t fight him because we want to.
It’s Got To Be Millions
“We’re down, but they got to be making M’s [millions]. Not hundreds of thousands of dollars. M’s,” said Fernando about the Davis brothers needing to be bringing in millions per fight for him to be interested in allowing Keyshawn or any of them to fight his sons.”
It doesn’t look promising as far as Keyshawn becoming a fighter that brings in millions for his fights. He’s not another Gervonta Davis, and he doesn’t have the entertaining style of guys like William Zepeda or Abdullah Mason. If anything, Keyshawn fights more like Shakur Stevenson, but he mixes in roughhouse tactics. Think of Keyshawn as a physical version of Shakur.
The problem that the 2020 Olympic silver medalist Keyshawn has is he’s been fighting weak opposition his entire three-year pro career, and he’s not pushed to fight talented guys like Andy Cruz, William Zepeda, or Raymond Muratalla.
All the soft matchmaking that Top Rank has done for Shakur to take the backdoor route to building him into a star hasn’t worked. Fans have not been impressed because they’re not fools. They can see with their own eyes that Top Rank is feeding Keyshawn stiffs.
If Top Rank changed things around by matching Keyshawn against Cruz, Zepeda, Muratalla, or Abdullah Mason, he might gain a following if he won. They’re not doing that.
Even now, Keyshawn is maneuvered into a title shot against WBO champion Denys Berinchyk, the weakest of the belt-holders at lightweight.
Hype It Up
“You’ve got to hype it up, and you have to get more known. I’m not saying something that’s wrong. Nobody knows who those dudes are unless you’re a boxing heads. Nobody knows who they are yet,” said Fernando about Keyshawn his brothers. “If Amado walks into a place a place with Keyshawn, I don’t even know who he is.”
Keyshawn has two brothers who box, Kelvin Davis and Keon Davis, but they’re not shown much talent. Davis has labeled himself and his brothers “DB3 and repeats that monicker a lot, hoping it will stick in the minds of fans. It hasn’t.
The welterweight prospect Kelvin is mediocre, and Keon looks just as below average. If Keyshawn is hoping that Fernando will set up fights involving his sons with the Davis brothers, he’s kidding himself because that’s never going to happen. No one would care if Fernando did make those fights, and he obviously knows that.
“If Amado and him walk into the arena, the majority of the people know who Amado is. They’re not going to know who the hell Keyshawn is,” said Vargas.
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