Bob Arum has offered his honest assessment amid accusations that Keyshawn Davis ‘ducked’ his WBO world title opportunity against Devin Haney.
The pair were ordered to collide for Haney’s welterweight belt, with Arum’s Top Rank actively pursuing a deal for its fighter, Davis, to secure his shot at becoming a two-weight world champion.
Despite having never fought at 147lbs, the American did claim the WBO lightweight title by dethroning Denys Berinchyk with a fourth-round stoppage last year.
Rather perplexingly, he was then named as the WBO mandatory challenger at 147lbs after exceeding the 140lb limit against Nahir Albright, who he unanimously outpointed in May.
This therefore positioned him for a stab at Haney’s belt, only for Davis to reject a reported $3m deal that was proposed by Top Rank.
As a result, their contest went to a WBO purse bid hearing, with Top Rank trumping Teofimo Lopez’ Takeover Promotions with a sum of $8.55m.
This would have seen Davis pocket a total of $2.14m, as per the sanctioning bodies’ policy of a 75/25 split in favour of the champion.
The self-proclaimed ‘Businessman’ ultimately withdrew himself from the fight, however, with veteran promoter Arum subsequently telling Dan Rafael that he was left baffled by the whole saga.
“Listen, I’m an old man. I don’t know what the thinking is. I don’t have any goddamn idea. We went out and tried to make this fight for him because he shot his mouth off that this was the fight he wanted. And when we made the fight, he doesn’t want it.”
Following the Davis debacle, Haney is now searching for a new opponent after having not fought since his title-winning performance against Brian Norman Jr in November.
