Joey Davis suffers first loss in Bellator 293 comeback

TEMECULA — In the end, the judges decided Joey Davis didn’t do enough.

In his first cage time in 28 months, the Compton welterweight controlled much of his comeback fight against Jeff Creighton but suffered his first loss via split decision in a considerable upset Friday evening at Bellator 293 at Pechanga Resort Casino.

Davis (8-1) scored seven of his 12 takedown attempts, but he did little with them. Meanwhile, Creighton (7-3-1) landed 60 strikes to Davis’ 11 over three rounds.

Davis was not available for comment, but his mentor, Team Bodyshop coach Antonio McKee, said he thought it was the right decision.

“It was fair and made a lot of sense to me,” McKee said in an exclusive interview. “I tried to tell him during the rounds, you know, ‘You’re not active, you’re holding him, you didn’t punch him. And if you don’t make that transition, you’re going to lose this fight.’

“And it just progressively seemed to get worse.”

As Davis had Creighton on the mat or pressed against the fence, Creighton sustained little punishment while his coach, former UFC star Joe Stevenson at Team Quest in Temecula, kept hollering for strikes and elbows. Stevenson yelled repeatedly that Davis wasn’t doing “any effective grappling.”

Two of the judges agreed, scoring it 29-28, 28-29, 29-28 for the 27-year-old North Carolina native, who was making his Bellator debut. All three judges scored the first round for Davis, who entered the fight as a -2500 favorite.

McKee said there were issues outside of training and fighting affecting Davis. He specifically mentioned a lack of ambition Friday night.

“That’s not the same guy that I trained with Monday through Friday in my gym. That’s not the same guy that’s jumping rope when you tell him to go home and go to sleep. It’s not the same guy that’s hitting the bag and you say stop and rest,” McKee said.

“So I don’t know, you know? We got to go sit down. We got to talk about some stuff.”

Davis, 29, hadn’t fought since a unanimous decision over Bobby Lee at Bellator 253 in November 2020. The former Sante Fe High two-sport star said he needed a break after going 133-0 from 2013-16 at Division II Notre Dame College in Euclid, Ohio, followed by an 8-0 start in Bellator.

Of Davis’ 11 strikes, eight were punches, two were kicks and one was a knee. By contrast, Creighton landed 27 elbows, 23 punches, seven knees and three kicks.

Creighton didn’t attempt any takedowns and landed a majority of his strikes while being pressured or held by Davis, who did little to advance the position. In fact, referee Frank Trigg twice separated the fighters for lack of action.

McKee said Davis mentioned that Creighton didn’t do anything. His coach countered by saying neither did he but at least his opponent threw punches.

“We’re gonna go sit down and let him see the fight, because I don’t think he thinks the fight went the way it went,” McKee said. “I think he has another fight in his head. I’m gonna sit down and go over and study it and go from there.”