Keyshawn’s Assessment: Morrell Showed Promise, Needs Refinement

Keyshawn Davis was impressed with what he saw from David Morrell in his performance against David Benavidez on February 1st on PBC on Prime Video PPV earlier this month.

He felt that the light heavyweight Morrell (11-1, 9 KOs) could have made it more interesting if he had more experience and made a few strategic changes to his game. Keyshawn says Morrell shouldn’t have backed up so often against the ropes and would have been better off circling.

Experience Gap

He also felt that he should have gone on the attack against Benavidez (30-0, 24 KOs) beginning in the fifth or sixth instead of waiting until the last two rounds. Waiting that long put Morrell in an impossible situation where he needed a knockout, and he had the wrong opponent for him to do that.

Benavidez has a head like a Water Buffalo, and he can take massive shots that would KO a normal human. Obviously, if Benavidez keeps eating the kind of shots that he took against Morrell, he’s going to be leaving the sport with just a few marbles rolling around in his head. The man has no defense at all, and he’s asking for trouble against Artur Beterbiev. When Artur gets done with Benavidez, there won’t be enough left for Morrell to bother with.

“It was a loss for Morrell on his record. It really wasn’t no loss. I watched it. I’m watching the next David Morrell fight, and that was the first fight I ever watched of David Morrell,” said Keyshawn Davis to Fight Hub TV about Morrell’s fight against David Benavidez on February 1st.

“He sold himself great. David Morrell looked great. I felt if he had more experience, it probably would have been a better fight. David Benavidez has all the experience in the world, and I’m a fan of David. I just felt that David Morrell was a little too inexperienced, and a lot of it showed for sure.

“First of all, he started kicking into that second gear too late. At the end of the fight, he started standing there and fighting David Benavidez. He finally got his confidence to fight him, and that was a little too late. We were all saying in the sixth round, fifth round, ‘Kick it in. Fight this man. Stop moving so much.”

Late Surge

Morrell should have gone after Benavidez earlier in the fight because when he stopped showing him respect, he was hurting him with his bigger punches. He showed in the end that he was better than Benavidez. It was like watching a light-hitting volume puncher getting beaten by a stronger guy.

Morrell’s power was on another level, and he was the better-conditioned fighter in the end. Benavidez had used up all his gas in the first eight rounds and had nothing left to fend Morrell off. He looked like a tired cruiserweight. Benavidez revealed that he’d rehydrated to 196, which is a 22-lb water gain from the 174 lbs he’d weighed in at.

“‘Bro, use your jab. Move in a circle. All you got to do is keep circling him. Why do you keep backing up straight to the ropes?’ Those things right there. It’s the inexperience. I feel like maybe years down the line, maybe they can rematch that. I know David Morrell is going to be a fantastic fighter that people are going to continue to watch. He’s exciting. So maybe years down the line, they can run that back.”

It was a mistake on Morrell’s part to back up to the ropes, shelling up and allowing Benavidez to tee off on him. When he moved around, he neutralized offense well. In the later rounds, when Morrell finally went after Benavidez, he was outpunching him and was making him look bad in the same way Oleksandr Gvozdyk did.

“I can see why Canelo doesn’t want to fight him,” said Keyshawn about Benavidez.

It doesn’t look like Canelo Alvarez will ever fight Benavidez unless Turki Al-Sheikh offers him insane money, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. There’s other fights that Canelo can fight and still make money. He doesn’t need the big dough that Turki would offer him to fight Benavidez.