LAS VEGAS – David Benavidez and David Morrell Jnr held an audience of media rapt – or at least held them longer than anyone planned – Thursday at the MGM Grand Studio Ballroom ahead of their light heavyweight clash Saturday here at T-Mobile Arena.
As far as such things go, it was a spectacle – the fighters jawing at one another and even their promoters taking verbal jabs in the final pre-fight press conference. Given the simmering and seemingly authentic animosity between the two sides, it seemed worth sticking around to learn if, and how, it might boil over. Call it the show before the show.
But only a couple miles across town, at the Top Rank Gym, the delay meant that another exhibition was being put on hold. Although a handful of sweat-soaked fighters thumped heavy bags as trainer Brian “BoMac” McIntyre observed and occasionally called out directives, the room was relatively quiet. The main attraction had yet to arrive – and neither had his audience. A media workout, after all, would not have worked out without media.
So the Keyshawn Davis Show would have to wait.
Not that Davis, the lightweight contender set to challenge titleholder Denys Berinchyk on February 14 in New York, took any issue with the timing. Showing up fashionably late for the original workout start time, he simply strode in with his associates (including his French Bulldog, Prince), set up shop and hung tight until the media trickled in behind him. Then, it was time for them to wait on him.
Davis didn’t disappoint. After speakers were appropriately stationed and spirits were duly hyped, Davis, 12-0 (8 KOs), picked up a rope, started skipping and then began his sparring session – with his media spectators.
“Hey, since I got all y’all’s attention right now, I need answers,” Davis said, his rope clicking in rhythm. “For real, what round am I stopping Berinchyk in?”
A few calls came out from the onlookers.
“I heard seven,” Davis answered back. “What else? Three? You got three? Six? Four?”
His pulse hadn’t quickened a beat, but Davis was clearly warming up.
“Do y’all believe I can stop Berinchyk?” Davis asked without waiting for an answer. “It’s plus money now. We all can get rich together.”
The laughs came easily. Skipping away and showing his generalship on the other side of the ring ropes, Davis had yet to break a sweat as BoMac and gym manager Frank Stea looked on with bemusement. But he was cooking, alright.
“Oh, I got a serious question this time: Did y’all think I was gonna stop Lemos?” asked Davis, who dropped Gustavo Lemos three times in a dazzling second-round knockout win last November. “Yeah? OK, yeah. Anybody else? You didn’t think so? Frank didn’t neither.”
Davis then summoned Prince – “Make room, make room!” he instructed the media – as he double-timed the rope. He was in the pocket now.
“Alright, look, grade me as a fighter,” he urged. “From ‘D’ to ‘A,’ what caliber of a fighter am I in right now? … Man, don’t say ‘A’ in front of my face and then go get on your podcast and go, ‘Aw, I don’t know,’ all that shit. Give it to me real!”
Davis wasn’t angry – just toying with his 30-some sparring partners with tripods and selfie sticks. He was waving them in, calling for them to come at him straight so that he could set up the slip-and-counter.
“Who’s that big name fighter who could actually, like, whoopty woo?” Davis asked, all but jutting out his chin.
Predictably, “Tank!” was lobbed back. Davis has lately called out Gervonta Davis – like Berinchyk, a lightweight titleholder – and sowed the seeds of a beef, as well as a potential blockbuster.
“Tank? That’s it?” Davis asked, mock-incredulous.
Then, a probing jab: “Well, if your brother’s off the table …”
Everyone in the building knew the identity of Davis’ “brother” – and in this case, it wasn’t either of his birth siblings, Kelvin and Keon, pros in their own right. It was good friend and former Top Rank teammate Shakur Stevenson, a third lightweight belt holder.
At this, Davis held a beat … and then launched.
“Who says Shakur is off the table?” Davis barked.
Then, just as quickly: “Awww, I’m playing, I’m playing.
“There y’all go,” he said. “Help make that headline.”
And so it went. Davis dropped the rope, hopped into the ring, ducked a homemade gladiator stick and hit the pads, all while still holding court. It was the day’s superior production – a masterclass, frankly, when compared to the F-bomb-filled and homophobic spewings that debased the presser across town. Davis owned the room and the ring, and he made it look as effortless as a parlor trick.
Boxing’s ranks of fighters who can both entertain and annihilate have been depleted. Where the next ringleaders will come from is anyone’s guess. But on Thursday at the Top Rank gym, with paintings depicting famous fighting orators Muhammad Ali and Tyson Fury hanging just steps away, Davis was charismatic, winking and funny, and yet his point was never missed: He’s coming, and it’s everyone else who needs to be ready.
Jason Langendorf is the former Boxing Editor of ESPN.com, was a contributor to Ringside Seat and the Queensberry Rules, and has written about boxing for Vice, The Guardian, Chicago Sun-Times and other publications. A member of the Boxing Writers Association of America, he can be found at LinkedIn and followed on X and Bluesky.
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