David Benavidez should be forced to face WBA ‘regular’ light heavyweight champion David Morrell next, with the winner to challenge whoever emerges from the undisputed 175-lb championship match between Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol from their October 12th contest in Riyadh.
Ideally, Benavidez should face Morrell (11-0, 9 KOs) next, and the winner challenges the Bivol-Beterbiev winner for the grand prize of the four belts. Benavidez will not willingly put his now-guaranteed title shot at risk by fighting the talented Cuban David Morrell and potentially losing the fight.
Turki Alalshikh: The Key Persuader
Benavidez will get a ton of money fighting for the undisputed light heavyweight championship against Artur Beterbiev or Bivol. Still, if His Excellency Turki Alalshikh were to convince Benavidez that it would be in his best interest to face Morrell first, he would do it.
Only Turki can persuade Benavidez to fight Morrell because there’s no chance he would volunteer to battle him in a semi-final elimination match. He wouldn’t do that if there were a mountain of money he could get fighting the winner of the Beterbiev-Bivol fight.
The WBC made it too easy for Benavidez (29-0, 24 KOs) to line himself up to face the Bivol-Beterbiev winner by sanctioning his last fight against 37-year-old past his best Oleksandr Usyk to be for the 175-lb interim title earlier this year on June 15th in Las Vegas.
That should not have been for the interim WBC light heavyweight title, given that Benavidez was making his debut at 175 and was fighting an older fighter, Gvozdyk, who had only recently emerged from a four-year retirement, being out of the sport from 2019 to 2023.
Benavidez’s Lackluster Performance
The ‘Mexican Monster’ Benavidez looked plain awful against Gvozdyk, running out of gas after six rounds and taking heavy shots from rounds seven through twelve in a fight last June that many boxing fans felt should have been scored a twelve-round draw at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. The Nevada judges gave Benavidez a wide decision, but the fans saw what happened. Benavidez looked terrible and was fought to a standstill by Gvozdyk.
That performance by Benavidez wasn’t good enough for him to go to the next level to challenge for the undisputed championship against Beterbiev or Bivol. The way Benavidez fought, he’d lose to at least six contenders in the 175-lb division and would be no match for the winner or loser of the Beterbiev vs. Bivol fight.
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