Keyshawn Davis ruined his homecoming by weighing in 4.3lbs over the 135lbs limit for his fight with Edwin De Los Santos. The task of saving the Top Rank card fell to his brothers, Keon and Kelvin – but on Saturday at the Scope Arena in their hometown of Norfolk, Virginia, one of them fell short, too.
Nahir Albright, the man who pushed Keyshawn to a majority decision in 2023 (before it was changed to a no-contest thanks to Keyshawn testing positive for marijuana), turned his menace on Kelvin in the co-main and came away with the majority decision upset.
In the second round, Albright put Kelvin Davis on jelly legs with an overhand right. Albright followed up with a salvo that had Davis stumbling, clinching and even dropping to the canvas, though it was ruled a slip. Through three rounds, Albright had a 25-5 edge in power punches. By Round 7, the edge was 50-20.
Albright hurt Davis badly twice more in the fourth, again with the right hand. The taller, lankier Davis could do little but hold on in desperate hope that the storm would pass.
Davis had his best round in the seventh, landing an uppercut and a few power shots in sequence. Though he landed more uppercuts, notably in the 10th, the outcome seemed fairly clear in the end.
Although the scorecards provided their customary scare – the first score was 95-95 – the other two judges came through with 96-94 and 97-93 scores for Albright. Kelvin Davis lost his “0,” falling to 15-1 (8 KOs), while Albright ascended to 17-2 (7 KOs).
On the undercard, welterweights Tiger Johnson, 16-0 (7 KOs), and Janelson Bocachica, 17-4-1 (11 KOs), combined for a deeply uneventful 10 rounds. Judges scored the bout for Johnson 100-90, 98-92 and 97-93, leaving Bocachica without a win since February 2021.
The ESPN broadcast showed a split-screen with Prenice Brewer, Johnson’s trainer. Brewer seemed to burn more calories than his fighter. Over the course of the half hour, Brewer told Johnson to walk Bocachica down, fire a 1-1-2, get in the pocket, take his head offline and just about every other piece of boxing advice that can be imagined. Before the ninth round, he gave his fighter a pep talk in the ring and threw a mock combination fiercer than anything Johnson hit Bocachica with. In the end, though, Johnson outlanded Bocachica 100-71 and deserved the decision.
Middleweights Troy Isley, 14-0 (5 KOs), and Etoundi Michel William, 16-1 (12 KOs), combined for the best-matched fight on the card. Isley won a unanimous decision that could justifiably have been a draw. Isley may have come in with the undefeated record, but William, who sports a monstrous, albatross-like 79ins reach, got off to the better start.
Isley tried to cut the distance with stabbing jabs to the body and short hooks. The action intensified in the fourth round as the fighters each landed a series of inside power shots. Isley closed the gap with increasing success later in the fight, while William didn’t use the stick often enough to keep his opponent at bay.
At the end of the eighth, Isley got too buoyed by a moment of success and was caught with a flush right uppercut immediately followed by a straight left that seemed to hurt him. But judges scored the bout 98-92 and 96-94 (twice) for Isley.
Keon Davis, 4-0 (3 KOs), got by far the loudest cheer of the night – Keyshawn let a lot of people down in and around Norfolk – early in his six-rounder (contracted at 150lbs) against Michael Velez, 3-1 (2 KOs)
At 6ft 3ins, Keon Davis fights behind a long 1-2, but it was a violent left to the body in the second round that put Velez on his knees and sent the crowd roaring. The stoppage came at 2 minutes, 22 seconds of the round.
Euri Cedeño, 12-0-1 (11 KOs), stopped 18-4-1 (9 KOs) Abel Mina after five rounds of a scheduled 10 at middleweight. Cedeño has some pedigree as the ninth-ranked WBA middleweight contender and a veteran of sparring with Jaron “Boots” Ennis. Outside a couple Mina combinations, Cedeño delivered a one-sided pummeling, including a “Canelo”-esque beating of Mina’s arms and shoulders.
In the fourth round, Cedeño landed two enormous, flush left hooks, swinging out of his shoes. Mina ate them. One round later, Cedeño landed another that sent Mina somersaulting backwards. By the end of the round, Mina was on trembly legs, and his corner would not send him out for the sixth.
Lightweight Deric Davis, 7-0 (7 KOs), easily overpowered and stopped Naheem Parker, 5-3 (2 KOs), in two rounds. Parker came to win, throwing hard combinations to the body. But Davis dwarfed him in the ring, and once he imposed his power, Parker fought in retreat. A devastating left to the body sent Parker to a knee in Round 2 for the count – and for multiple minutes afterwards.
In the opener, a four-round cruiserweight summit, Patrick O’Connor wiped out Marcus Smith, 2-2 (2 KOs), in the second round of his professional debut. O’Connor, 19, countered Smith’s clumsy offense with vicious uppercuts to the body and head. After one knockdown, referee Bill Clancy halted the fight at 2 minutes, 3 seconds of Round 2. Smith was still on his feet but hopelessly outclassed.
“It’s a mismatch,” ESPN broadcaster Mark Kriegel said bluntly, speaking for everyone watching. “I’m not really sure what the point is.” The point was to make O’Connor look good – and Smith got skewered on it.
In an interlude interview segment, Davis acknowledged that his failure to make weight and the subsequent loss of his title was “very unprofessional,” though he didn’t deliver what could be called an apology. The ESPN panel, including BoxingScene “Weight Cut” interviewee and Hall of Famer Tim Bradley Jnr, excoriated Davis’ lack of effort to boil down.
Owen Lewis is a freelance writer with bylines at Defector Media and The Guardian. He is also a writer and editor at BoxingScene. His beats are tennis, boxing, books, travel and anything else that satisfies his meager attention span. He is on Bluesky and can be contacted at owentennis11@gmail.com.