“This is my show.”
The above statement is from Kyrone Davis in an interview he did with Thaboxingvoice.com about his upcoming fight tonight. Davis is matched up with Gilbert Alex Sanchez on the undercard of Julian Williams PBC headliner against Luciano Leonel Cuello on Fox Sports 1.
I’ll note that Davis was specifically talking about how the fight will proceed, specifically whether or not he’d try to get rounds in for the experience of his first 8round contest. He made it clear that he could go in with a game plan meant to get rounds in under his belt and then wake up the morning of the fight prepared to take his opponent out immediately.
Davis is a young talent in the middleweight division. He has become one of Thaboxingvoice’s young “fighters to watch” over the past year and we have covered him thoroughly. He has been on our twice-weekly radio show, he’s been the subject of a handful of videos on TBV’s YouTube channel, and we have done a handful of features/write-ups on the New Jersey born fighter.
The blend of his skillset is interesting enough, but his maturity level is what separates him from other prospects, especially those with only 8 wins.
“I just want to be seen. I’ve worked so hard and at the end of the day I just want all my hard work to be seen. Some people chase the money, some people chase the glory, but for me, I just want to be seen. I want people to notice and look at my work to understand how much went behind it,” Davis told Thaboxingvoice.com.
There is something to be said of a man that is simply looking to be appreciated. It is a simple request, but it speaks volumes about the complex nature of man and his desire to leave a legacy.
“It’s a lot that can be misinterpreted because a lot of people talk about boxing, but they don’t really know boxing. They don’t know about all the sacrifices you have to make to actually be a boxer. It’s like a painter painting a picture and nobody ever sees his painting. I just want people to see my work and appreciate it before I die.”
Kyrone wants to prove he belongs, he wants to prove his worth and he wants to prove he is at the level. But the only person he is looking to impress is himself.
“There’s a lot of good fighters at 160lbs and I just want to climb the ranks at my pace, if that’s fast or if that’s methodical, and get to the point where I’m being seen for what I’ve done.”
Boxing has matured Kyrone and forced him to grow up fast. He was 8yrs old when he began to frequent the boxing gym.
“If you have a kid, put him in the gym because it matures you. I got to the point where I wanted to quit at a young age. As an amateur, I was 91-9. Now, I’ll put all that in retrospect. When I was young, I was 12-5, and before that my record was 5-0 and then I lost 3 fights straight. So, I got to the point where I didn’t know if I would be good at this. I didn’t know if I was really going to compete. I started questioning myself.”
His dad decided that this would be the moment he showed his son the true meaning of perseverance as he kept a young Kyrone in the gym. Eventually, Kyrone forced himself to stay in the gym and would not allow himself to quit. Even when his father would keep Kyrone from the gym as punishments for unacceptable grades for the Davis house, Kyrone would cry because he knew it was where he needed to be.
It built maturity in the young Kyrone and it taught him at an early age that there were things that had to be done in life. Things that extend beyond responsibilities and become duties specific to an individual. For example, you don’t have to get a job if living without money is no issue, but you have to go to work if your family’s wellbeing depends on it. That said, if you were born to be a scientist then you have a responsibility to become one. If you were meant to be a great athlete then it is up to you to dedicate yourself to a specific craft. For Kyrone, he had it in him to do something great, but he had to work very hard at owning his craft.
His time in the gym paid off and the more time he spent in the ring, the more things began to click.
Kyrone played football and basketball as a kid. He was very smart and he could’ve been a well-accomplished academic, but he was never going to do something to just be average at it. If he was going to be a scientist then he wanted to cure Cancer. If he was going to be a football player than he was going to have to be Jerry Rice. If he chose basketball then anything less than a Jordan type career would be a failure to him.
You see, Kyrone has the special switch in his brain. Not everyone has it, and some would consider it a curse. But the truth is Kyrone will not allow himself to be ordinary. He is talented and he knows it, but more important than that is his ability to work towards a goal. So if he possesses the physical and mental capacity for greatness in a particular avenue then he is going to set his mind so that it becomes one-track. Even if he is operating on several levels through different dimensions, Kyrone is still focusing all of those attributes onto one goal. One place in life.
