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Keysawn Davis believes the performance he’ll turn in against Gustavo Lemos on Friday, November 8th, will put him on the brink of fame. The unbeaten 2020 Olympic silver medalist Keyshawn (11-0, 7 KOs) faces Lemos (29-1, 19 KOs) in a ten-round lightweight headliner on ESPN+ at the Scope Arena in Norfolk, Virginia.
According to Top Rank president Todd Duboef, Keyshawn hand-picked Lemos as his opponent. He doesn’t say why Keyshawn didn’t select Cuban Andy Cruz as his opponent because he’s ranked much higher at lightweight than Lemos, and he owns a perfect 4-0 record against him from the amateurs. Cruz and his promoter, Eddie Hearn, have been calling out Keyshawn with no luck.
The Top Rank-promoted Keyshawn expects 10,000 fans to turn out to watch him fight Lemos, and he’s got a couple of his brothers on the undercard. Norfolk has a population of approximately 232,000+ people. So, it’s easier to be a big ticket seller in that small city with not much going on compared to a larger city like New York with 8.3 million people.
Keyshawn didn’t perform well in his last fight against Miguel Madueno, winning a ten-round distance on the Shakur Stevenson vs. Artem Harutyunyan card on July 6th. He says he stole the show, but he didn’t, and his performance was on par with Shakur’s.
Keyshawn fought like a WWE wrestler, using tactics that had no resemblance to boxing and doing everything he could to keep from taking punishment from the hard-hitting Mexican fighter.
You could tell Madueno’s pressure on Keyshawn caused him to unravel mentally. Hence, the wrestling tactics were a last resort. It was hard to watch the fight because Keyshawn looked like he wanted no part of the actual fighting.
It was surprising that the referee didn’t disqualify or penalize him multiple times for his tactics, but he caught a break with the referee’s laissez-faire attitude when enforcing the rules. Keyshawn would have been disqualified by the sixth if I had been the referee. He was just so awful that night, but he wasn’t any better in his fight against Nahir Albright last year in October.
“Of course, I would pick Lomachenko first, but if I could become a world champion, then I’m going to become a world champion. I’m not going to be waiting on nobody’s time,” said Keysahwn Davis to the Sean Zittel channel when asked if he’d like to challenge IBF lightweight champion Vasily Lomachenko.
Lomachenko isn’t going to waste time fighting Keyshawn because he’s not a big name and has not looked impressive in two out of his last three fights. Keyshawn has a lot to prove still, and it’s questionable whether he’s going to pan out.
“I sell. So, I don’t need a name to help me sell,” said Keyshawn. “So whatever world champion wants to entertain me first, that’s who I’m going to go after. Me and Berinchyk will be a great fight. Of course, I’m going to be the winner of that fight, but I think it’ll be good for him in terms of marketing and promotion.”
WBO lightweight champion Denys Berinchyk would likely be the favorite against Keyshawn, and he could beat him. If Keyshawn loses to Berinchyk, it’s predictable that Top Rank will dump him overboard. That would be Keyshawn’s third poor performance in his last four fights. We still don’t know how Keyshawn will do against Lemos. He might look bad against him as well.
“Not only a world champion, but I feel like after my fight against Lemos, I’m going to be on a breaking point of becoming a superstar,” said Keyshawn. “I’m going to have 10,000 people watching me in that arena [Scope], not including ESPN viewers. They’re going to see another taste of, ‘Damn, Keyshawn is really like that. Just like his last fight [Miguel Madueno].’
“I’m going to be on the breaking point of being a star. Was it the fight of the night?” asked Keyshawn about his fight against Madueno.
The fight of the night on the July 6th card was Abdullah Mason’s third-round knockout win over Luis Lebron.
“Coming into the Lemos fight, you’re going to be entertained,” said Keyshawn.
Hopefully, Keyshawn does entertain because he’s the one who picked Lemos. So that must mean he sees vulnerability in him that he can exploit because he could have someone else.
2020 Olympic Cuban gold medalist Andy Cruz would have jumped at the chance to fight Keyshawn.
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