Davis Declines $2.14M Mandatory Share

Keyshawn Davis talked his way into a mandatory title shot and then turned it down when the money was on the table.

The WBO ordered the welterweight title fight between Davis and Devin Haney, the bout went to purse bid, and Top Rank came in with a winning offer of $8.55 million. Davis's mandated 25 percent share came to $2.14 million for a world title fight against one of the division's most prominent champions, targeted for October 3. He declined.

The WBO will now go back to committee to determine its next course of action, leaving Haney without a mandatory challenger and Davis without the shot he spent months lobbying for publicly.

Mandatory challengers are generally not in a position to renegotiate the terms the WBO has established through its official process. Turning down a purse bid of that size — on a fight that also came with the chance to add a world title and a win over Haney to his record — will follow Davis for a while. For a fighter who has built his reputation on confidence and ambition, pulling out at this stage undercuts both.

Haney's situation is its own kind of complicated. He holds the WBO welterweight title and by most assessments represents a winnable fight for challengers willing to take the risk. Yet the list of opponents who have come close to signing and then not signed keeps growing. Gervonta Davis, Shakur Stevenson, Keyshawn Davis, Rolando Romero, and a potential Ryan Garcia rematch have all been discussed at various points. None have materialized.

Whoever the organization names as its next mandatory will face the same calculation Keyshawn Davis just declined — a world title shot at a guaranteed number, take it or leave it.