Keyshawn Davis played up the box of fruit sent to him yesterday by an anonymous person, blaming it on WBO lightweight champion Denys Berinchyk to manufacture fake drama to create interest in their fight this Friday. The whole thing looked like a contrived theatrical move on Keyshawn’s part.
Playing the Villain?
Davis (12-0, 8 KOs) made it ugly, labeling Berinchyk as a “racist” without proof that he’d sent the box in an effort to create drama for his fight. Hopefully, he doesn’t do the same with some other cooked-up strategy to try and get people focused on his fight against his chosen opponent.
Berinchyk (19-0, 9 KOs) will defend his WBO lightweight belt against Keyshawn this Friday, February 14th at Madison Square Garden Theater in New York. The event will be shown live on ESPN and ESPN+ starting at 9:00 p.m. ET/6:00 p.m. PT.
“Keyshawn is very good, but he’s not getting the push that he needs. He’s doing the media rounds, and hopefully, he gets some love. Keyshawn could be the lot,” said Ade Oladipo on his YouTube channel. “I’m talking Gervonta. I’m talking Shakur. There’s this thing with Andy Cruz. Keyshawn could be the best out of them all. Let’s see how he gets on against Berinchyk, who is a very solid fighter.”
“He [Keyshawn] could be the best 135-pounder. I put Gervonta and Shakur in there. He’s got this killer instinct, and he’s willing to take all the challenges [except Andy Cruz],” Ade said to DAZN Boxing about Keyshawn, giving praise that he hasn’t earned.
“I remember that altercation with Teofimo Lopez. He says, ‘I’ll go to 140 or 147 to fight you.’ He wants the big fight, but this is a tough fight in front of him. Berinchyk is no joke. You mention that Shakur is a medalist, but so was Berinchyk. He was a 2012 Olympic silver medalist.”
You’d have to be pretty naive to think that Keyshawn Davis is the #1 fighter in the 135-lb division. If you’re a casual boxing fan with only a passing knowledge of the sport, you might think Davis is #1 after watching him beat Gustavo Lemos. That was a carefully picked-out opponent for Keyshawn, as Lemos had lost his last fight, small at 5’4″, slow as molasses, and had to drain down from 140. Instead of Davis choosing Andy Cruz, he selected Lemos. What does that tell you?
Cruz Avoidance
Keyshawn cannot be the #1 lightweight in the division when he refuses to fight Andy Cruz, Edwin De Los Santos, or Raymond Muratalla. That right there makes him unworthy of being rated in the top three fights. The Norfolk, Virginia native Keyshawn is basically being maneuvered carefully by Top Rank in the same way they did with Edgar Berlanga when he was with the company.
If you remember, Top Rank fed Berlanga 16 consecutive tomato cans, letting him score 16 straight knockouts. In other words, creating a fake hype job. We’re seeing the same tricks with Keyshawn, who has been matched against the weakest of the champions at 135 after being put in with 11 soft opponents.
The Best 6 Lightweights
- Gervonta Davis
- Andy Cruz
- Abdullah Mason
- Raymond Muratalla
- William Zepeda
- Edwin De Los Santos
I would include Vasily Lomachenko in that list, but his status on whether he plans to return is unclear. He might retire. However, if he does continue to, he’s in the top three.
“He’s a world champion medalist. He’s part of that Ukraine team that had Lomachenko, Gvozdyk, and Usyk. So, a lot of people expected Berinchyk to be on that level. Maybe he hasn’t achieved what those guys have achieved, but he’s unbeaten,” said Ade.
“He’s coming off a really good win against Navarrete. He was an underdog in that fight. He found a way to win. It was a split decision, but I thought he should have won it clear to me. So, this isn’t easy work at all. The one thing that Keyshawn maybe lacks is experience at the very highest fights, and that’s what Berinchyk has. I think Keyshawn will get the job done, but this is a tough fight,” said Ade.
If Berinchyk can avoid the early attempts by Keyshawn to score a knockout, he’s got an excellent chance of giving him a boxing lesson and possibly stopping him in the later rounds. Keyshawn was staggered by Nahir Albright in the eighth round of a razor-close fight on October 14, 2023.
The scores were 95-95, 96-94, and 97-93 for Keyshawn. It was a very close fight. After that terrible performance by Davis, Top Rank backed him off from fighting quality opposition and fed him these easy marks: Jose Pedraza [35 years old], Miguel Madueno, and Lemos. In the Madueno fight, Keyshawn turned it into a WWE match, wrestling him to neutralize the constant pressure he was putting on him.
The referee didn’t lift a finger to penalize Keyshawn for the grappling, shoving, and rabbit punches he was using during the fight. You could see that Davis did not like the hard shots and the pressure from Madeuno. He was using every trick in the book to get him to back off, and he should have been disqualified. That fight showed that Keyshawn is a hype job.
Last Updated on 02/13/2025
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