Edwin De Los Santos revealed that he will challenge Keyshawn Davis for his WBO lightweight title on June 7th in Virginia. Keyshawn, 26, is finally showing some bravery by taking on the heavy-handed Dominican Republic native De Los Santos in his first title defense.
However, he’s catching him at the perfect time, with two years of rust on him and coming off a loss. If not for that, it’s doubtful that Keyshawn and his promoters at Top Rank would ever agree to use him as a challenger. De Los Santos would be deemed too dangerous if he were active.
Unexpected Shot
Davis is being maneuvered VERY carefully by his promoters to keep him above the water line because he could quickly sink if they threw him in with young talents like Andy Cruz, Raymond Murtalla, Gervonta Davis, and his friend, Shakur Stevenson.
#13 WBO-ranked De Los Santos (16-2, 14 KOs) told MillCity Boxing the fight against Keyshawn (13-0, 9 KOs) is “For sure,” and he expects the contract to be sent tomorrow. Hopefully, Davis doesn’t have second thoughts and change his mind about fighting the 25-year-old Edwin because this is probably as good as it gets for him.
Keyshawn was talking crazy after capturing the WBO lightweight title from champion Denys Berinchyk last month on February 14th, saying he wanted Isaac ‘Pitbull’ Cruz in his first title defense. He sounded confident that the Pitbull would agree to fight him because he was now the WBO belt-holder.
Keyshawn doesn’t realize that being a champion doesn’t mean anything in this era of the sport. Belts don’t matter now. Those are only important for fighters who have no fanbase and need a title to validate them to casual boxing fans.
It’s not ideal for De Los Santos, 25, to fight for a world title after two years of inactivity without a tune-up. He’s not going to turn down the opportunity. He hasn’t fought since losing to Shakur Stevenson by a 12-round unanimous decision on November 16, 2023.
Edwin threw away his chances of winning that fight by not letting his hands go enough, seemingly afraid of being hit with counters from the 2016 Olympic silver medalist. De Los Santos could have won but didn’t show the fire that we’d seen from him in his three-round knockout of Jose ‘Rayo’ Valenzuela.
The “Businessman”
It’s not the fight that fans wanted to see from Keyshawn because they’ve been pushing him to defend against his four-time conqueror, Andy Cruz. Unfortunately, the Top Rank-promoted Davis has shown no interest in facing the talented Cuban after losing to him in the 2020 Olympics.
That terrible experience seems to have left a mark on Keyshawn, making him reluctant to face Andy again. Davis calls himself ‘The Businessman’ since turning pro, and his focus seems to be just to make money. Fighting Andy Cruz again would turn the cash flow off at the spigot.
Last Updated on 03/25/2025
