There is plenty to say about the Keyshawn Davis and Edwin De Los Santos lightweight title bout being cancelled given Davis was forced to relinquish his WBO title while he further didn’t help his reputation by getting into an altercation with former opponent Nahir Albright.
However, De Los Santos’ decision to bow out a fight with an overweight Davis, forfeiting his right to fight for Davis’ vacated title, should warrant at least some outrage―especially given he should not have been in that position in the first place.
Having not fought since 2023 when he was defeated by Shakur Stevenson in a lackluster and heavily-criticized match, De Los Santos should in no shape or form have been eligible for a world title fight―as he had been inactive and shouldn’t have made the top 15 of the WBO’s lightweight (135 lbs) rankings as a result.
Yet the WBO chose to do exactly that as they placed De Los Santos in the top 15 of their rankings in March; conveniently the same month as the fight between Davis and De Los Santos was reportedly in the works.
The fight would later be announced in April, and the WBO’s role in placing an inactive fighter as a top 15 contender went completely unnoticed.
It shows the rather subtle change in the WBO since Gustavo Olivieri took over as president, using a similar tactic as other sanctioning bodies have on countless occasions to put an undeserving contender in their rankings in order to help the defending champion defend against said contender.
It’s corruption, a small case of it but notable enough it paints Edwin De Los Santos as someone who shouldn’t have gotten the opportunity to challenge for a world title; something he already had a chance to win in his 2023 fight against Stevenson.
Which is why the cancellation of the Davis-De Los Santos bout made even less sense.
To clarify, Keyshawn Davis certainly should have lost his recently-won WBO title for coming in overweight as he reportedly weighed in at 139.3 pounds―4.3 pounds over the 135-pound limit of the lightweight division.
Not far from Ryan Garcia coming in 3¼ pounds overweight against Devin Haney last year, though their match would continue as normal due to an agreement struck where Haney would get paid for every pound overweight.
And not even close to the 6½ pounds Gustavo Lemos came in overweight against―ironically enough―Keyshawn Davis in November of last year.
In both instances, the fights continued as an agreement had been struck.
Edwin De Los Santos’ manager, however, the prominent yet clearly incompetent Sampson Lewkowicz who also manages Sebastian Fundora―who recently lost his title for refusing to face his mandatory―and David Benavidez somehow didn’t have things in place for De Los Santos to get compensated in case his opponent came in overweight.
Or at least, when time the round of negotiations began for De Los Santos to be compensated following Davis’ weight debacle, Lewkowicz clearly bungled the talks as reports indicated an agreement couldn’t be reached.
Ultimately, the decision fell to De Los Santos who opted to not fight; depriving himself of a paycheck and the ability to win Keyshawn Davis’ vacant WBO title.
It is a baffling decision in a climate where money rules and titles grant untold opportunities. Even in the case of a loss, De Los Santos would not have faced any real downsides given he would still get paid and his opponent was not eligible to win the title stripped from him. Given he was inactive, that too provided De Los Santos had the perfect excuse to save Top Rank’s June 7th show which would get headlined by American prospect Abdullah Mason following the cancellation of the original main event.
The entire situation is somewhat of gigantic mess that certainly sums up one of Top Rank’s worst fight nights in years, but seems especially so as neither Davis nor De Los Santos seemed to have gained anything in return; summing up a rather pointless effort, time and money by both to spend weeks in a training camp.
