Keyshawn Davis Criticised for Albright Rematch Move

Tim Bradley says the matchup doesn’t match Davis’ momentum after his recent performance

Keyshawn Davis is being questioned for stepping back at the exact moment he was expected to move forward.

Tim Bradley looked at the timing, the opponent, and the recent run, and came away with one conclusion: the next fight doesn’t match the direction Davis had been building.

The criticism comes after Keyshawn Davis stopped Jermaine Ortiz, a result that carried weight because Ortiz had proven durable and difficult to break down. It gave Davis a win that suggested upward movement. Instead, the next step points back to a familiar name.

“You just came off stopping a dude that ain’t been stopped,” Bradley said on his channel about Keyshawn coming off a knockout of Jamaine last January. “Now you fa to go back and fight Albright. Make that make sense.”

It is hard to argue with Bradley’s frustration. On paper, fighting Nahir Albright in 2026 is the definition of a lateral move, if not a step back. After Davis dismantled Jamaine Ortiz, a guy who gave Teofimo Lopez and Lomachenko all they could handle, returning to an opponent he already beat in 2023 feels like a momentum killer.

However, the context of this specific matchup suggests that moving forward was never the primary goal for this date.

This fight on May 16 is slated to be the headliner for the first show under Top Rank’s new broadcasting partnership with DAZN. To make that debut successful, they needed a main event in a hot market. Taking the fight to Keyshawn’s hometown of Norfolk, Virginia, guarantees a sell-out and a raucous atmosphere for the cameras. Albright is the perfect grudge match foil because of the genuine bad blood following the locker room scuffle involving Keyshawn’s brothers last year.

The “Big Names” like Devin Haney and Ryan Garcia are currently operating in a different financial stratosphere thanks to Turki Alalshikh and Riyadh Season. Top Rank likely isn’t willing or able to match those purses for a non-title fight on a standard DAZN. If the budget was capped, Albright represents a high-reward, low-cost opponent who provides a built-in narrative.

The failed negotiations with Richardson Hitchins for the January card really backed Davis into a corner. When both fighters demand main event money for a 50/50 fight that isn’t for a major world title, the promoters often blink.

By choosing Albright, Davis clears the “No Contest” from his record, settles a personal rivalry, and stays active while waiting for the 140-lb title scene (and the Saudi money) to shift in his favor.

Bradley is right from a sporting perspective: Davis is idling his engine when he should be shifting into fifth gear. But from a promotional perspective, this is a showcase and paycheck move. The danger, as Bradley notes, is that boxing fans have short memories. If Keyshawn doesn’t absolutely dominate Albright this time, the future of the division hype will start to go away.

“Keyshawn, we going backwards, bro,” Bradley said. “We moving forward or we going backwards? We going backwards, people.”