Keyshawn Davis stepping away from boxing for a year to ‘get myself together’ after controversies

Keyshawn Davis was supposed to make the first defense of his WBO lightweight title against Edwin De Los Santos on June 7 in Norfolk, Virginia, but then Davis missed weight by an astonishing 4.3 pounds at the official weigh-in and was thus stripped of his belt. It was a nightmare scenario for “The Businessman,” a rising star in American boxing who had sold 9,000 tickets for his hometown headliner.

“[I was] undisciplined for sure. Not being true to myself as well,” Davis told Uncrowned’s “The Ariel Helwani Show” on Wednesday in his first public interview since that disastrous week.

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“[I knew it was] probably time to move up [in weight] and [knew] how my body [felt]. [I was] just trying to sacrifice because I had another homecoming fight and I wanted to defend my title in my hometown. I just took a sacrifice to try to make the weight again, and it just didn’t turn out that way.”

“During the [Denys] Berinchyk fight [in February], I told my team, ‘This is my last time doing this.’ But after you win, [you’re] a world champ now, so there’s a lot of opportunities and all that stuff. They’re like, ‘Just defend it one time, you’re going back home.’ They [made] it sound real good, so I’m like, ‘OK, I’ll do it. I’m staying active, I don’t shoot up in weight, so I should be [good].’ I guess that was the wrong call.”

“During fight week, I’m like, ‘Damn, this weight is not coming off like it usually does,'” he added. “The day of the weigh-in, I’m trying to sit in the bath and all that stuff — the weight literally just was not coming out. I’m skinny as hell, dehydrated and stuff. So I’m just like, ‘Man, it is what it is. [I] just can’t get it off.'”

Despite Davis missing weight and being stripped of his belt, negotiations ensued between Davis and De Los Santos’ camps to reach a deal to allow their headlining bout to continue under a new agreement. It’s common for main-event fights in boxing to still proceed forward after one fighter misses weight because tickets have already been sold, a promoter has an obligation to deliver for their network, and — most importantly — fighters generally don’t get paid their full purse unless they fight.

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De Los Santos wanted to proceed with the fight, however his promoter, Sampson Lewkowicz, ultimately canceled the bout.

Lewkowicz, who has been a promoter for three decades, said that from observing Davis dancing before he stepped on the scales, he realized that the now-former champion had never intended to compete at the lightweight limit from the beginning.

Lewkowicz, therefore, chose not to let De Los Santos fight Davis, as he believed it would be too unsafe for De Los Santos to do so under a massive size disadvantage. Lewkowicz also drew comparisons to the Ryan Garcia vs. Devin Haney situation of 2024, where Garcia seemingly chugged a beer bottle after missing weight by a huge margin. Haney went through with the fight and took severe punishment on the night, after which Garcia tested positive for a banned substance and was suspended.

“I fought myself for it,” Davis said. “But I was super cocky, arrogant, thinking that he’s just going to take the fight anyway because I [boxed someone that significantly missed weight at] one point in time with the [Gustavo] Lemos fight, and then just thinking that it’s a big event, there’s no way that he cannot fight. He’s a fighter. All that’s going through my head during that moment, so I’m just thinking that he’ll take it. I didn’t come overweight on purpose, that’s not what champions do. That’s not what I do.

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“[So] when I got that call [telling me the fight was off], I talked to them, of course, and then I hung up — and you can just feel my energy switch. [My family] are all looking at me [and] I’m like, ‘Yeah, it ain’t going to happen.’ They [were] just like, ‘F***.'”

“After I got that phone call that he wasn’t going to take the fight, something in me was just like, ‘Keyshawn, you’ve got to f***ing change, bro. You’ve got to do better, you’ve got to be better.’ Something in me was just like — boom, everything hit me. All my wrongs [and] everything that I thought that was right, that I could’ve [done] better.”

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While the moment should’ve led to reflection and a changed attitude for Davis, unfortunately for him, there was yet more negativity left to come out of what had fast become a horror week.

The 2020 U.S. Olympic silver medalist attended the reshuffled June 7 event as a spectator instead to support his two brothers, Kelvin and Keon Davis, who competed on the undercard. The night didn’t get off to a positive start for him, as ESPN cameras zoomed in on Davis’ arrival, recording his nonchalant attitude as he devoured popcorn. Davis received significant criticism that night for what was portrayed as a carefree attitude on the ESPN broadcast for the fight. He had missed weight, lost his world title, let down his home fans, and apparently didn’t seem bothered — or so the narrative was made out.

“Coming from where I come from, I learned to build a barrier where I’d never let [anything affect me],” Davis said. “After the Olympics, when I lost [for the gold medal], I learned how to put up a barrier where people can never see me hurt, where people can never see me down. After I lost in the Olympics, that was the most hurt I ever was in the public eye, and I didn’t even show it. You ain’t seen not one nothing. So I learned how to build that s*** up — and it backfired on me. When I was hearing people say, ‘He doesn’t really care.’ I’m like, ‘Damn, why [are] people saying that?’ Because before I came to the scale, people [didn’t] know what I was doing [was crying]. People don’t know how I was really feeling inside.”

Davis watched later in the night as his former opponent, Nahir Albright, upset his brother, Kelvin, in the chief support bout. Davis then decided to visit Albright’s locker room alongside his other brother, Keon. When ESPN cameras went to Albright’s locker room, Albright told them that he was “jumped” and “head-butted” by the Davis brothers, and showed the cameras a significant lump on his forehead, which was not visible immediately after his fight.

“Everything that he’s talking about that happened in the locker room is not true,” Davis insisted. “He took that moment [of me being in his locker room] and ran with it and used that s*** for what he used it for. Everything just got blown out of proportion.

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“I walked in there, just not trying to fight this dude. I’m not trying to start no altercation. First of all, his locker room was right next to ours. It wasn’t like I had to skip across town to find him. He was right there. I was going to say a few words. It wasn’t going to be [anything] crazy because the fight is over with. For him to say that I put my hands on him, and me and my brother [head-butted] him and all that s*** — I was like, ‘What?’ I was shocked for real. At the end of the day, I shouldn’t have walked in his locker room anyway, so he just [took] that s*** and [ran] with it.”

Following the incident in De Los Santos’ changing room, Davis was involved in yet another altercation, as a brawl unfolded backstage while the main event was unfolding. ESPN cameras showed Davis and his infant son in the midst of the chaos as punches and objects were seen being thrown in the footage. Davis was escorted out of the Scope Arena by police following the second incident of the night.

“The Businessman” confirmed to Uncrowned that he is currently under investigation by the state of Virginia for both altercations.

Davis, who has struggled with mental health in the past, said he isn’t in a rush to return to the ring and is hoping to “get myself together” before focusing on boxing again. The 26-year-old described how he needs a break from boxing as he has been focusing on the sport “nonstop” since the Olympics in 2021. Davis hasn’t done any boxing training in two months and isn’t expecting to fight again for another year.

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“I could’ve [said], ‘I’m going through stuff and that’s why I did [it].’ Nah, I don’t even want it to come off that way,” Davis said. “I was wrong. I’m grown enough to know that I need to be better for my son, for myself, and for God.

“When I get back to boxing, just know that I am going to be a better Keyshawn.”