The great thing about New York is the brilliance of the standards – the restaurants, the Broadway shows, the museums, the shopping – and the unknown discoveries to be found around any street corner.
Few living men know New York like Top Rank Chairman Bob Arum, who was born and raised there and has returned regularly to stage a wealth of big-time boxing matches like the Valentine’s Night version he’s bringing to The Theater at Madison Square Garden Friday.
For Arum, the main event is like unveiling a Broadway play that arrives with palpable anticipation over the leading man.
That man is Keyshawn Davis, 25, an unbeaten lightweight contender from Norfolk, Virginia, seeking to take the WBO lightweight belt from new champion Denys Berinchyk of Ukraine.
“We’re very high on Keyshawn, obviously, because he has a tremendous personality, he’s a very exciting fighter and he can become the face of boxing down the road,” Arum said.
“That’s what I’ve always hoped for, as far as Keyshawn is concerned, because when you look at all of his fights up to now – and going forward – not only is he very proficient, but he’s also exciting.”
Meanwhile, Arum strides far more gingerly toward the return of another formerly promising talent, heavyweight Jared Anderson.
On August 3 in Los Angeles, Ohio’s Anderson, also 25, dared to take a lucrative pay day from Saudi Arabia’s Turki Alalshikh to fight The Congo’s Martin Bakole, who promptly flattened Anderson, 17-1 (15 KOs), with three knockdowns before referee Jerry Cantu waved the fight over with Anderson standing in the fifth round.
Anderson has been assigned a favorable matchup against Greek-born Swede Marios Kallias, 12-3-1 (10 KOs), but how he returns from that August trouncing is anyone’s guess.
“I’m apprehensive because I don’t know how he’ll come back after not only losing his first fight, but getting knocked out,” Arum said.
“Hopefully, he’ll go on and [win Friday] and it will just be a blip on his career. But I’ve been around long enough to know that things can go the other way. He’s in with a fairly decent guy who he should beat, but who knows what the effect of the Bakole loss was?”
The expectation for Davis, 12-0 (8 KOs), is to fully announce himself to the world as its newest champion, in one of boxing’s most talented divisions.
While Davis and his silver-medal predecessor, three-division and WBC lightweight champion Shakur Stevenson, have vowed never to fight each other because of their bond, the division boasts unbeaten three-division and WBA champion Gervonta “Tank” Davis, three-division and IBF champion Vasiliy Lomachenko and the man who defeated Davis in the 2021 Olympics, Cuba’s unbeaten Andy Cruz.
Davis attended Cruz’s impressive unanimous-decision victory over Mexico’s Omar Salcido January 25 in Las Vegas, and greeted him afterward with a determined expression and touch of hands as both seek a professional rematch.
First, Davis has to beat Cruz to becoming a world champion.
His test is serious, considering that the rugged, active Berinchyk, 19-0 (9 KOs), is coming off a split-decision triumph over power-punching three-division champion Emanuel Navarrete in May to win the belt in San Diego. Navarrete responded impressively by knocking out former two-division champion Oscar Valdez in December.
“It’s not an easy fight for him. It’s a tough fight,” Arum said. “What I’m looking for is for him to perform in a way that he not only wins, but he makes people stop and think, ‘My God, that was an exciting fight.’
“I’m an old timer. I go back to Ray Leonard, where you’d always see [his] great talent and every fight had you watching. That’s what people who are spending their money and time want: something out of the ordinary. Not just a guy winning a fight by being proficient.
“If the guy’s exciting, then it’s easier to sell tickets to his fights, and it’s easier to get them to watch. It all goes together. It’s not exclusive.”
If you want to read between the lines and reason that Arum is making a not-so-veiled reference to the less-thrilling style of Stevenson that led to Top Rank parting ways with the immensely talented fighter, you’d be correct.
“What Keyshawn brings to the table is excitement,” Arum said. “And all the other great ones – whether it’s Sugar Ray Leonard, Oscar De La Hoya, Manny Pacquiao, [Floyd] Mayweather – they brought excitement.”
Davis is coming off a sensational homecoming showing in November, when he battered overweight opponent Gustavo Lemos and finished him in the second round.
With Stevenson off limits, with Lomachenko on an injury hiatus and Davis preparing for his March 1 pay-per-view title defense in Brooklyn against super-featherweight champion Lamont Roach Jr., Davis needs to win impressively and position himself for the big fights that will materialize for those who best flex their talents.
“Lomachenko would be an unbelievable fight and attraction … if he’s OK, and if he’s going to continue, then sometime later in the year, that would be a tremendous fight,” Arum said.
So would Andy Cruz, or, if Lomachenko opts to retire, the April 5 Raymond Muratalla-Zaur Abdullaev IBF title eliminator winner could be there for a unification fight as “Tank” Davis looms.
“That would be good, but nobody’s chasing anything,” Arum said. “First, Keyshawn has a tough battle Friday. And then there are a lot of guys down the road that he can fight. If Gervonta Davis is available, that fight can be arranged.”
Lance Pugmire is BoxingScene’s senior U.S. writer and an assistant producer for ProBox TV. Pugmire has covered boxing since the early 2000s, first at the Los Angeles Times and then at The Athletic and USA Today. He won the Boxing Writers’ Association of America’s Nat Fleischer Award in 2022 for career excellence.