David Benavidez could face WBA ‘regular’ light heavyweight champion David Morrell next January in a fight that would put the winner in position to battle for the undisputed championship at 175 lbs.
Salvador Rodriguez reports interest in making the Benavidez vs. Morrell fight in January. That match-up would get fans excited about seeing these two goliaths meet, with the winner challenging whoever emerges as the undisputed champion in the October 12th fight between Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol.
The bad news is that Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis will miss out on using Benavidez to help sell his December 14th card in Houston. Tank is defending against super featherweight Lamont Roach, and fans are not very interested in that fight at all.
Not having Benavidez on the December 14th card to pull in the PPV buys will be bad for Tank and PBC because he is important to creating interest from fans. They’re not interested in paying $75 to watch Tank Davis destroy the light puncher Lamont Roach. It’s a dumb idea for Tank to fight Roach instead of one of the talented lightweights.
Benavidez-Morrell is a big enough fight to headline its own card, which is why it wouldn’t be wasted for Tank’s December 14th event. Their fight would dwarf Tank’s clash against Roach.
Morrell (11-0, 9 KOs) recently moved up to 175 and defeated Radivoje Kalajdzic by a wide twelve-round unanimous decision to capture the WBA ‘regular’ title on August 3rd on the undercard of Terence Crawford vs. Israil Madrimov in a Riyadh Season card in Los Angeles.
The performance by the Cuban Morrell wasn’t one of his better ones, as he wasn’t able to put Kalajdzic away despite hurting him several times with big shots. What was missing was the sustained flurries that Morrell would have needed to get the KO. If he had done that, he would have knocked out Kalajdzic as early as the third because he was badly stunned after eating a big left hand.
“I’m told there is a lot of interest on the part of David Benavidez and David Morrell to face each other next January. In this way, on December 14, in Houston, there would be Gervonta Davis vs Lamont Roach, and Alberto Puello and Sandor Martin would join them,” said Salvador Rodriguez on X.
Morrell could wreck Benavidez’s dreams of getting a fight against Canelo Alvarez if he’s victorious against him. That’s a fight that Benavidez, 27, has been chasing for five years, but he’s come up empty due to his weak resume and lack of name recognition with casual boxing fans in the U.S.
While hardcore fans know Benavidez well, the casuals don’t, and he’s not a PPV draw. Hence, he was on Tank’s undercard last June, and he could have been this time if not for the potential Morrell fight.
Read the full article here
