Dan Rafael believes WBC interim super middleweight champion David Benavidez has the edge in his battle against WBA ‘regular’ champ David Morrell on February 1st.
The journalist Rafael feels that Benavidez (29-0, 24 KOs) has a better chin and punching power than the Cuban Morrell (11-0, 9 KOs) in this match-up, which will be shown live on PBC on Prime Video PPV from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Benavidez’s Weakness
Benavidez was hurt to the body in the 12th round by the former WBC light heavyweight champion Gvozdyk. That was an area that he seemed weak all during the fight when the Ukrainian stabbed him with jabs and right hands to the body.
Benavidez does NOT take body shots like he can to his head, which is understandable because he’s soft with very little muscle in his flabby midsection.
His ability to take headshots may be a product of having a large Andre ‘The Giant’ type of head on a thin, pear-shaped torso, which allows him to take shots that would generally hurt a typical fighter. Where Benavidez is weak is in the body. If Morrell attacks him there, he could score a body shot stoppage.
Experience Factor
“I would lean toward Benavidez. I wouldn’t say because of pedigree because David Morrell has that deep amateur background from the Cuban system, ” said Dan Rafael to Boxing Social about the David Benavidez vs. David Morrell fight on February 1st.
“They’re both in their prime athletically in terms of their age, even though David Morrell has so fewer fights because he had a late start. He left Cuba, and he moved very quickly in the early days of his career. But he didn’t need to have a 1000 fights because he had all that amateur experience, whereas Benavidez turned pro at 17-years-old. He was more of a work in progress to get him to this point.
“When you look at the records, and you see one guy has got less than 15 fights and one guy has got 30 fights, you’re thinking that guy is much older and has much more experience. That’s not the case. They’re both much closer in age and in terms of experience, the amateurs that Morrell has kind of makes up for it, whereas Benavidez has more pro experience.”
Morrell has more experience in the sport than Benavidez, who has had 148 rounds as a pro during his 12-year career.
Morrell has 54 rounds, but he was 130-2 as an amateur in Cuba and has more overall rounds against better opposition than Benavidez has fought as a pro. Benavidez has fought limited fighters, mostly old guys like Gvozdyk, Demetrius Andrade, 36, David Lemieux, and Caleb Plant.
Chin and Power
“I lean towards Benavidez because the combination of his chin and power might be a little better than Morrell has,” said Rafael.
Morrell, 26, is the younger fighter by a little over a year and has never been hurt before. It’s hard to say for sure if Benavidez has the better chin or not when Morrell has never been hurt. Power-wise, Morrell is the better puncher by far. Rafael is off on that as well.
Benavidez is more of a volume puncher who throws a lot of slapping arm shots. All 24 of The Mexican Monster’s knockouts came when he was fighting below his natural weight class at 168, and had a massive size advantage over his opponents.
When he moved up to 175 in his last fight after 11 years as a pro, his power wasn’t the same, and he never was a threat to knock out his opponent Oleksandr Gvozdyk on June 15th last year.
“I have no evidence of that because it’s not like Morrell has been knocked down or knocked out or badly hurt. I just sort of get the feeling that in a firefight, the guy that is going to be able to make a little bit better is going to be Benavidez. But we’ll see. That’s why it’s 50-50-ish type of fight,” said Rafael.
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