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Ortiz is not a gentle touch
Jamaine is not an easy situation. This is definitely a risky return fight for Keyshawn because he’s not fighting another tough guy. Ortiz is a serious test for him, and he has upside in terms of physical tools. Jamaine is faster, more mobile and a superior combination puncher than Davis, and he fights in his natural weight class.
No room for a struggle
It will have to be a performance just as dominant as the one he showed in his last victory against Denys Berinchyk last February. What might keep Keyshawn from looking like 24-karat gold is that Jamaine isn’t a plodding, slow, stationary type of fighter like the ones his promoters at Top Rank have been regularly feeding him to be since he turned pro in 2021.
Jamaine Ortiz’s fighting style is a mix of Shakur Stevenson and Andy Cruz. This is not the right fighter for Keyshawn to use to get his momentum back, because there’s a good chance he’ll lose. Even if he wins, he looks bad given; this will not help him regain his lost momentum.
The year that has passed
Keyshawn was speaking earlier today, saying he’s only 26 and still has plenty of time. He’ll be 27 in two months, so he’s getting older. A year of his career essentially evaporated because he failed to make weight for his fight last June against Edwin De Los Santos.
The fight was later canceled. On the bright side, it might have been a good thing that Keyshawn was overweight because he could have lost. De los Santos is no joke. He is one of the biggest punchers in the lightweight division.
We saw Nahir Albright stagger Keyshawn in their 2023 fight. If he could have hurt him, imagine what De Los Santos would have done. So it wasn’t a bad thing that Davis missed his fight against him.
“A year ago, Keyshawn Davis looked like one of boxing’s brightest stars. He beat Denys Berinchyk to become a 135-pounder,” commentator Chris Mannix said on his channel about Keyshawn Davis fighting Jamaine Ortiz at Turki Alalshikh’s ‘Ring 6’ event on January 31 in New York.
It’s hard to be excited about Keyshawn’s win over Berinchyk, 37, because he was fighting an old man who looked considerably smaller than him inside the ring. Top Rank did a good job of steering Keyshawn towards a fight against Berinchyk because he was the weakest link.
“Can he get that momentum back in 2026? He had two of the biggest wins of his career,” Mannix said. “We know that in boxing. All it takes is one fight, one big performance on a big stage to get that momentum back. I think Keyshawn is on the perfect stage to do it.”
If the illusion breaks
If Keyshawn loses or appears to be winning poorly, Turki Alalshikh needs to rethink his use for future fights because it may not be worth it. A defeat against Jamaine would not be the result of inactivity. This would be a sign that Keyshawn was never as good as people thought he was.
The careful matchmaking that Top Rank camouflaged his flaws did for him. Keyshawn is still the same fighter that Andy Cruz easily dispatched and beat in the 2020 Olympics. The only thing that has changed is that he has faced marginal opposition throughout his short career.
