Last weekend, Ben Davison coached another fighter to a safety-first decision - but almost cost him the fight. Josh 'The Tartan Tornado' Taylor boxed beautifully to become an undisputed champion, earning four belts at junior middleweight. The Scotsman feinted and countered foe Jose Ramirez well but only narrowly outscored him. 114-112. Official judges gave Ramirez most of the early and later rounds, as did ESPN's commentators. Jose also had the home advantage, being American in a fight staged in Las Vegas.
With all this stacked against Taylor, Davison assured him in later rounds that he was winning, and advised him not to take chances. One might think Ben would be less confident in caution after his former pupil, Tyson Fury, failed to outpoint America's champion Deontay Wilder in Los Angeles three years ago.
Taylor - to Ben's credit - neutralised most of Ramirez's power and momentum with tactical clinching. But - exempting Taylor's two knockdowns - this wasn't swaying the US judges, who scored rounds against the man they saw to be surviving rather than dominating. This isn't the first time caution has cost one of Ben's pupils.
In December 2018, Tyson Fury came off a three-year layoff (and two tune-up opponents) to fight the champion Deontay Wilder. Like Taylor against Ramirez, Fury neutralised his foe's power with slick boxing and movement. However, he also barely outlanded the American, who twice floored the Briton to tie with him on the judge's scorecards. Renowned trainer Freddie Roach has publicly rebuked Davison for telling Fury to 'not take any chances', believing that Tyson could have knocked Deontay out with a more aggressive approach. This carries greater weight when, by Fury's own admission, he ignored the young trainer to beat his next foe Tom Schwarz in a vicious second round knockout.
At twenty-eight years old, Davison has already coached three of Britain's best ever champions in Fury, Taylor and Billy Joe Saunders. One might therefore think him a prodigy. And to be sure, he helped Fury regain title contention after a year spent ballooning up in weight while struggling with mental illness and drug abuse. Ben's fitness credentials are beyond reproach. But boxing-wise? His charges had already shown elite performances before Ben's arrival: Fury dethroned Wladimir Klitschko, the ten-year king of heavyweight boxing; Taylor unified against Regis Prograis in a barnstormer bout; Saunders schooled the heavy-handed David Lemieux in his own backyard.
These fighters were already world-level when Davison joined them. We haven't seen him build someone from the ground up to title contention. Additionally, the champions who followed his cautious gameplans have either scraped by or fallen short against world-level opposition. He works hard to prevent his fighters from getting hurt - admiral when we've seen ring-damage inflict CTE and even death on great fighters. But there is a line, and some risks must be taken to win when scorecards are so precarious.
When veteran fighters and trainers admonish Ben's instructions - and when his fighters' best performances come without him - there are clear-cut questions about his credentials and his future of coaching at world level.