Abdullah Mason can feel the hope, the expectation and the pressure.
He can feel it in the boxing community, he can sense it in the gym, and he experiences it in his day-to-day life.
Being talked about as one of boxing’s brightest hopes comes with quite a burden, but it is one he wears with enthusiasm and ambition.
Mason understands what so many fighters do; he’s routinely asked about the next fight, how to get tickets, who he’s got. It’s a cycle. Five times last year he went through it as he extended his record to 16-0 (14 KOs).
A 20-year-old Cleveland resident, Mason can’t hide from the fact that he has talent, and there are few places he can go in his hometown where he is no longer reminded of it.
Whenever it happens, one of the things he most wants is to box at home, before his expectant fans.
The dream is for him and his five brothers to all box on the same show, in front of family and friends.
“Yeah, well, I haven’t fought at home yet, but everywhere we go, all they talk about is the Mason brothers,” Abdullah says proudly. “We go to the gym and they talk about us. I go to the corner store, and they say, ‘When’s the next fight?’ I go to the grocery store with the family, they asking. … I see two, three people in there that know about me. Everybody’s asking when the next fight, or when you have one close, so they can come through. So I believe we definitely had that following, because Cleveland has watched me and my brothers grow since we started boxing, since before boxing, actually. My father’s just moving around and meeting different people. But we had that type of following, for sure.”
Mason came through a two-round shootout with Yohan Vasquez last November in a fight that was listed for Round of the Year honors, given that both fighters were down twice in just two rounds of action. While it forced some to put the brakes on the Mason bandwagon, others see it as a valuable learning fight. Perhaps it’s a reason to have a foot in both camps, but regardless, Mason’s star continues to rise.
“They are looking at me and my brothers as the next big thing, and not just out of Cleveland – just period, out of boxing,” he said. “A few people, like one of the guys yesterday when I was in a gym, a fitness gym, and he was like, ‘Yeah, I only watch boxing when I watch you and such and such,’ or, ‘I only watch this person and you.’ So I get that a few times, where I’m the only person that they watch besides their favorite fighter that’s been out for a long time. It’s not so much a pressure, because I know with work, that’s what comes with it. People expect you to keep doing good, to stay focused. So that’s where I’m at now. I’m just focused with my brothers in the gym all the time, just being patient and looking for that next step.”
The brothers include Amir, Adel, Abdu-Rahman and Ibrahim. Abdullah’s next step comes on Friday in The Theater at Madison Square Garden against tough Manuel Jaimes, against whom Mason is expecting his stiffest test yet.
But he hopes it is merely a pit stop on the way to having a fight back in Cleveland.
“It’s definitely on my list of things,” he said of his 2025 ambitions. “If I had a year how I want it planned, then I would definitely have a homecoming by the end of the year – with my brothers alongside.”
In Norfolk, Virginia, where he stopped Vasquez in the thriller, he was on a bill surrounded by Keyshawn Davis and his brothers.
Keyshawn is also in his weight class, topping the Friday bill in a fight for a lightweight title against Ukraine’s Denys Berinchyk. Asked whether there was any extra-curricular beef between the Davis boys and the Masons, Abdullah remained professional. Both families are “up and coming,” he said.
“We’re the next bigger thing in boxing. So we got to do what we got to do to get there. … The Masons versus anybody. Boxing is … it’s a business. We not beefing with anybody, but if you want our division, then we’re here. If boxing takes you along that path, we’re destined to meet each other. So, no friends, no. No beef, but boxing is boxing.”
Tris Dixon covered his first amateur boxing fight in 1996. The former editor of Boxing News, he has written for a number of international publications and newspapers, including GQ and Men’s Health, and is a board member for the Ringside Charitable Trust and the Ring of Brotherhood. He has been a broadcaster for TNT Sports and hosts the popular “Boxing Life Stories” podcast. Dixon is a British Boxing Hall of Famer, an International Boxing Hall of Fame elector, is on The Ring ratings panel and is the author of five boxing books, including “Damage: The Untold Story of Brain Trauma in Boxing” (shortlisted for the William Hill Sportsbook of the Year), “Warrior: A Champion’s Search for His Identity” (shortlisted for the Sunday Times International Sportsbook of the Year) and “The Road to Nowhere: A Journey Through Boxing’s Wastelands.” You can reach him @trisdixon on X and Instagram.
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