Shakur Stevenson says that Keyshawn Davis made the right call when he decided to wait for the delayed Olympic Games rather than turn professional and that he believes the lightweight will become the USA’s first male Olympic boxing gold medallist since Andre Ward.
When the Olympics were pushed back to the summer of 2021, because of the coronavirus pandemic, the 21-year-old Davis initially indicated that he would turn professional rather than spend another 12 months in the amateur ranks. Stevenson was one of the people he spoke to before making his decision to stick with the Olympic programme.
Davis and the 22-year-old WBO featherweight champion are tight, so close that Stevenson refers to Davis as “my little Bro”. When Davis was edging towards turning his back on Tokyo Billy Walsh, the USA head coach, urged his to look at Stevenson, who claimed a silver medal at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro and won a world title in only his 13th professional bout.
“We had a little conversation, but he was smart,” Stevenson said. “He ended up making the best decision for himself.
“I think he is going to win an Olympic gold medal.”
Stevenson went to Rio as the US’s big hope outside Claressa Shields, who was defending the middleweight title she won in London four years previously, but lost out on a narrow points decision to Cuba’s Robeisy Ramirez in the bantamweight final.
“Going to the Olympics makes you a much better fighter,” Stevenson said. “It gives you the experience that really gets you ready for the pros. It helped me a lot, it made me a way better fighter when I got to the pros. The Olympics is like a big pro fight, the whole world is watching you, it is different from every fight before then.
“It’s going to help make Keyshawn a much better fighter, he’s smart that he has decided to stay. The experience is going to help make him the fighter he can be.”
Ron Lewis is a senior writer for Boxing Scene. He was Boxing Correspondent for The Times, where he worked from 2001-2019 - covering four Olympic Games and numerous world title fights across the globe. He has written about boxing for a wide variety of publications worldwide since the 1980s.