David Benavidez appears to be setting up a preemptive excuse by saying his opponent WBA ‘regular’ light heavyweight champion David Morrell, has been lax about wanting to be tested for drugs by VADA. The two are fighting on February 1st on PBC on Prime Video PPV at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
In an interview, Benavidez (29-0, 24 KOs) went on to lengths, talking about Morrell (11-0, 9 KOs) and the drug testing, bringing up two of his knockout victims, Sena Agbeko and Kalvin Henderson, to support his argument.
A “Safety Net”?
It looks to some like Benavidez, 28, is bringing this up to muddy the water in case he loses to Morrell. If Benavidez gets beaten, fans won’t come down hard on him and abandon ship due to the suspicions they would have about Morrell using drugs. It would give the ‘Mexican Monster’ a free pass to escape the backlash that he would normally receive from losing to the Cuban Morrell.
“Morrell actually submitted his VADA paperwork 1 day BEFORE Benavidez late in November. #Fact,” said Keith Idec on X.
It’s pathetic that Benavidez repeatedly discussed his suspicions of Morrell ahead of time, as this tarnishes the match and detracts from interest. But for Benavidez, it gives him a built-in excuse if something goes wrong and he’s knocked out or beaten on points.
Benavidez’s wreckless style of fighting, loading up on every punch, is going to put him at risk of being knocked out by Morrell. He was hit a lot in his last fight against Oleksandr Gvozdyk, fighting like that, and was lucky that the Ukrainian fighter was mostly pushing his shots rather than putting maximum power into them the way he was.
In the second half of that fight, Gvozdyk repeatedly took advantage of Benavidez’s careless style to nail him with powerful shots. He hurt Benavidez in the 12th round with a punch to his soft midsection that shut him down entirely for the final 30 seconds of the fight. Benavidez didn’t throw anything after getting hit by a right hand from Gvozdyk to the breadbasket in that round.
Benavidez’s Preemptive Excuse
“It’s not an excuse, but when you go through other fighters that say, ‘Hey, I was tested by VADA, but David Morrell was not tested,’ it brings a lot of questions,” said David Benavidez to the media, bringing up his suspicions of David Morrell being a dirty fighter ahead of their February 1st fight.
“I’m not the only fighter that said this. There have been two other fighters [former Morrell knockout victims Sena Agbeko and Kalvin Henderson]. We’re talking about Agbeko. He says he was tested the whole camp. David Morrell was not tested, and after the fight, they didn’t do no drug test, which was kind of odd to me.
“I don’t really care about that. Even if he [Morrell] was on steroids, I’d beat the s*** out of him, but if you’re a dirty fighter, you will get exposed. That’s why they’re making such a big deal. They didn’t want to get tested, but dirty fighters will get exposed in the game. It’s not good for the sport, and it’s not good for the people to use steroids. So, I’m not going to let that s*** slide,” said Benavidez.
It’s so disappointing to see Benavidez constantly mentioning drug testing, making it clear that he’s implanting an excuse in the minds of fans ahead of his fight with Morrell. The Cuban believes that this is a signal that Benavidez is “scared” of him.
“We’re being tested because I keep putting pressure on VADA, saying, ‘We got to test. We got to test.’ These are the high-caliber fights that need testing. When I fought Caleb Plant, and I fought Demetrius Andrade, we were testing 14 weeks out. For this one, we barely started testing nine weeks out.
“It’s not like I’ve been asking stuff that I didn’t do myself. I’ve been tested more than anybody by VADA,” said Benavidez.
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