Keyshawn Davis is never short on confidence or motivation to excel in the pro ranks.
Of course, he needn’t look any further than his own gym for the ultimate boost in both categories, given the current status of stablemate Terence ‘Bud’ Crawford.
Davis found plenty of inspiration from Crawford’s legacy-cementing ninth-round stoppage of Errol Spence (28-1, 22KOs) in their July 29 undisputed welterweight championship at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Crawford spent more than five years in pursuit of the fight since he won the WBO welterweight title in 2018, and was forced to outlast the harshest forms of industry resistance to land the fight and ultimately shine in dominant fashion.
“After that Spence win, Bud got everyone’s confidence sky high,” Davis told BoxingScene.com. “He got everyone knowing and believing that once we get that opportunity for us, we know how we want to perform.
“He just got everyone believing this can be done. We can make this happen, we can be legendary.”
Davis (9-0, 6KOs) is presented with the opportunity to show up and show out in his scheduled ten-round lightweight bout versus Nahir Albright. The two meet this Saturday as part of an ESPN show headlined by the Janibek Alimkhnauly-Vincenzo Gualteri WBO/IBF middleweight unification bout from Fort Bend Epicenter in Rosenberg, Texas.
The bout is the third of the year for Davis, a brilliant 24-year-old southpaw from Norfolk, Virginia who claimed a Silver medal during the delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics. It is first ring appearance since Crawford’s incredible showing versus Spence atop their Showtime Pay-Per-View event which saw Crawford (40-0, 31KOs) become a true lineal champion in his third weight division and two-division undisputed champ.
It came more than a year after Crawford ended his ten-year relationship with Top Rank, against whom he filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit on grounds of Breach of Contract and Fraudulent Misrepresentation.
Top Rank currently promotes Davis, who is trained by the same brilliant team behind Crawford—Esau Dominguez, Brian ‘Bomac’ McIntyre and Red Spikes. All have taught Davis that hard work will eventually pay off, though an even greater lesson has been absorbed from witnessing the switch-hitting pound-for-pound great in action.
“Terence Crawford has the strongest mentality of anyone I’ve ever been around,” Davis insisted. “I’ve never seen anyone with his mindset. Boxing is 90 percent, 95 percent—whatever you want to say, that much of it is mental. He just got that edge, nobody can match him. Nobody can break him.
“What he has shown us is that if we put in that amount of work, as much as him or even more than him, then we know the outcome to any fight. We’ve seen it coming for years, even before. Me, Shakur [Stevenson] and everyone got to see it coming for years. That night was just a beautiful night for everyone in our circle.”
Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox