Lightweight contender Keyshawn Davis went on a big rant on Tuesday, complaining about the media criticizing his and Shakur Stevenson’s recent performances. Keyshawn wants blanket praise from the media, no matter how poor, and that’s not realistic.
Davis maintains that it’s bad for the sport for the media to criticize fighters for the way they fight. He wants praise, even after poor performances like his recent one against Nahir Albright last November.
Davis says that fans will stop watching the sport if the media keeps criticizing the fighters for being boring or fighting badly. Actually, the fans will stop watching if fighters are putting them to sleep, like Keyshawn did against Albright and Shakur did in most of his 21 fights as a pro.
“Shakur is usually at the top. As soon as he has one bleep, the whole boxing world is coming down on him,” said Keyshawn Davis to Fighthype, talking about the criticism Shakur Stevenson got for his performance last November against Edwin De La Rosa.
This wasn’t the first time that Shakur turned in a bad performance because he’s been fighting like this from day one. Fans & the media have been patient with the unbeaten lightweight Shakur (21-0, 10 KOs), enduring one dull, safety-first performance after another.
The tipping point for fans is the De La Rosa fight, because Shakur just ran all night, using his ugly pull-back style, causing the fans at ringside to boo him nonstop. After the fight, Shakur claimed he had an injury but didn’t show x-rays or present a doctor’s note to back up his story.
“It wasn’t like he got dropped. It wasn’t like it was a close decision,” said Keyshawn. “I don’t like that about the sport because it waters down the sport. That makes people leave the sport. I don’t like when a fighter has a bad performance, and the whole boxing world talks about that performance.
Shakur’s win over De Las Rosa was actually a close decision, and many boxing fans felt that he was gifted the win. The judges scored it 116-112, 115-113 and 116-112. The most accurate score of the three was the 115-113 score, and that could have gone De La Rosa’s way because Shakur was running the entire fight.
If Top Rank cared about the fans, they’d stow Shakur & Keyshawn’s fights on the bottom of the cards where they can’t be seen because if they’re not going to entertain, it’s bad for the sport.
