The American silver medalist from the most recent Summer Olympics cannot wait to showcase his skills on Shakur Stevenson’s undercard Saturday night.
Keyshawn Davis has long considered Stevenson, who won a silver medal for the United States at the 2016 Summer Olympics, to be a mentor. The 23-year-old Davis admires the fast track Stevenson took to his current position – potentially becoming a unified champion in just his 18th professional fight, in a main event ESPN will televise.
The Norfolk, Virginia, native, who answers to the nickname “The Businessman,” still intends to be careful about not taking on too much too soon during the developmental phase of his career. Davis (4-0, 3 KOs) will encounter Esteban Sanchez in ESPN’s eight-round co-feature, a lightweight fight that’ll air just before Stevenson (17-0, 9 KOs) and Oscar Valdez (30-0, 23 KOs) square off in a 12-round, 130-pound title unification fight at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.
“Of course, we all know I’m on a fast track,” Davis said during a conference call conducted via Zoom on Monday. “I don’t really wanna move too fast, honestly. I feel like as of now, yeah, I have the skill and I have the ability to beat a lot of these fighters now, maybe some champions. But how I’m thinking right now, as a business, honestly, I’d rather just – not rather, but I want to build myself first as a fighter. I want more people tuned in to me and I just want a bigger fan base for myself, just so, you know, when I do get to that big world title fight or that fight to get me to the world title fight, I’m already, you know, a star, or at least close to it.
“And I just don’t wanna move too fast because this is a long career. And, you know, once you get to that peak level, it’s no turning backwards. So, I just wanna keep developing my skills, keep developing my craft, keep learning the business of boxing and just, you know, taking it every single fight, you know, so I can just learn from it and just keep getting better. But I don’t wanna move too fast.”
Davis definitely will have an opportunity to attain fans Saturday night, when well over one million viewers are expected to tune in for a three-bout broadcast headlined by Stevenson-Valdez (10 p.m. ET; 7 p.m. PT). In Mexico’s Sanchez (18-1, 8 KOs), Davis will face a more experienced opponent, yet a below-average puncher who was stopped in the seventh round three fights ago by Luis Alvarez (then 17-7).
Nevertheless, Bob Arum, Davis’ 90-year-old promoter, appreciates Davis’ ambitious but practical approach toward building himself into a star.
“I wish everybody had the philosophy that Keyshawn has, because he’s right, dead on,” Arum said. “I mean, it’s one thing to go right to the top and fight for titles, but you’re not prepared for the rest of your career to defend titles. Keyshawn will move at a very intelligent pace. He will, when he fights for a title, he’ll be prepared and he’ll be holding titles and winning titles for many, many years. That’s the goal with Keyshawn Davis and I am so delighted to hear him say such an intelligent plan, because that is the best plan to have if you’re building yourself up into really big superstardom.”
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.
