KEYSHAWN DAVIS went the 10-round distance for the third time in four fights to record a unanimous decision win against Miguel Madueno at the Prudential Centre in Newark. All three judges returned a 99-91 scorecard for the American.
The lightweight contender looked to be in a celebratory mood when he walked to the ring, flanked by his two brothers, prior to his 11th outing but would not have expected to be still throwing punches in the final round.
This was because Madueno never stopped trying throughout, and his Mexican machismo drew Davis into exchanges in which he was happy to take part. Davis was the superior fighter, however, in every round but gave unnecessary encouragement to his opponent by sitting on the ropes, allowing Madueno to throw leather.
At distance Davis, (11-0, 7 KOs), was lighting Madueno up with his accuracy and the Olympic medallist showed intent early in the fight with hooks to the body but that tactic was rarely repeated. Instead, Madueno ate shot after shot and never looked like being stopped.
Things got ugly at the end of round six when both fighters let some red mist descend as they rubbed heads which led Davis to shove Madueno away with a glove before referee David Franciosi was caught by the Mexican looking to land one on Davis instead of the official. Luckily for Madueno he only received a talking to during the 60-second breather.
The final few rounds were untidy with Madueno, (31-3, 28 KOs), becoming wilder in his pursuit of Davis. The Virginia native demonstrated exactly what type of fight it had become by mimicking a matador in the final session.
“He was tougher than I expected,” Davis said afterwards.
“This was the toughest most physical professional fight I had but I had fun in there – I like to fight. I’m glad he [Madueno] did that. It was a different experience and definitely gonna take a lot from it.”
The highly-rated contender refused to call anyone out and instead said, “I’d be willing to fight anybody. Whoever Top Rank want to put in the ring with me, put me in there with the big names. The fans wanna see it. I’m not mentioning no more names, I called out the whole boxing world. They know I wanna fight. Just send them a contract.”
