NEW YORK – Keyshawn Davis is sure Shakur Stevenson will comfortably defeat Floyd Schofield on Saturday night in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
When, according to Davis, Stevenson leaves the ring at Kingdom Arena with his WBC lightweight title around his waist, Davis doesn’t intend to entertain inevitable questions about boxing his fellow Olympic silver medalist next. The newly crowned WBO 135-pound champion’s perspective on facing his close friend, no matter how much money they could be offered, hasn’t changed.
Davis (14-0, 9 KOs, 1 NC) and Stevenson (22-0, 10 KOs) agreed a long time ago that they would not fight each other.
“What you guys gotta realize is we knew this day was gonna come when we was amateur, bro,” Davis told The Ring. “And this question is really starting to get sickening, honestly, because I keep telling y’all the same sh-t. But we knew this day was gonna come. We all knew that everybody was gonna want us to fight because we knew how great we are. But no, we’re never gonna fight, so y’all can just stop asking us that question.”
The question, of course, stems from the facts that Davis, 25, and Stevenson, 27, are elite-level talents who own world titles in the same division and are now promoted by competing companies – Bob Arum’s Top Rank Inc. (Davis), Stevenson’s former promoter, and Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing (Stevenson). It doesn’t hurt, either, that Davis’ nickname is “The Businessman,” which would at least suggest that this could be about, well, business more than personal relationships, particularly if neither Davis nor Stevenson can secure the highest-profile fight both boxers want – a showdown with WBA 135-pound champ Gervonta “Tank” Davis.
Baltimore’s Davis (30-0, 28 KOs) is scheduled to defend his title against WBA super featherweight champ Lamont Roach (25-1-1, 10 KOs), of Upper Marlboro, Maryland, in a pay-per-view main event March 1 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Ukraine’s Vasiliy Lomachenko (18-3, 12 KOs) owns the IBF lightweight title, but the three-division champion, who will turn 37 on Monday, is considering retirement.
Regardless, Keyshawn Davis alluded to facing Gervonta Davis and/or Lomachenko after he destroyed Denys Berinchyk on Friday night in The Theater at Madison Square Garden. Davis dropped Ukraine’s Berinchyk (19-1, 9 KOs) twice with left hooks to the body – once in the third round and again in the fourth round – before referee Harvey Dock stopped a scheduled 12-round main event ESPN televised at 1:45 of the fourth round.
“[I want] anybody that got the balls to step in the ring and fight me,” Davis told ESPN’s Bernardo Osuna. “Tell ‘em come on with anybody. It’s two 135-division champions that I would love to fight. You know, but if they got the guts to step in the ring with ‘The Businessman,’ tell ‘em send me a contract, or I’ll send them one.”
Stevenson, meanwhile, is listed by DraftKings as a 14-1 favorite to beat Schofield (18-0, 12 KOs), of Austin, Texas, in their 12-round title fight on the Artur Beterbiev-Dmitriy Bivol undercard. The Stevenson-Schofield fight is part of a seven-bout pay-per-view show sponsored by Riyadh Season ($25.99; 10 a.m. ET in the United States; £19.99; 4 p.m. GMT in the United Kingdom).
Keith Idec is a staff writer and columnist for The Ring. He can be reached on X @idecboxing.