Coach Jose Benavidez Sr. tells him “20 years” His son, interim WBC light heavyweight champion David “The Mexican Monster” Benavidez, will defeat David Morell on February 1 and will then fight the winner of the Artur Beterbiev vs. Dmitry Bivol II rematch.
20 or 28?
I'm not sure where Benavidez Sr. got this information about David being “20 years old” because 28 And it has a lot of miles on its odometer.
I would say Benavidez Closer to 38. He has been a pro since 2013 and is already starting to fall apart physically, with multiple injuries all over. Even if he is 20 years old, he will be up for it, as he will fight Cuban Morel (11-0, 9 KOs) in the main event in 23 days on PBC on Prime Video PPV.
This will be a difficult fight for Benavidez, especially since he is starting to break down physically after a long career that has witnessed many wars. He gets into a lot of gym wars too because that's his style.
Jose Sr. also stated that Benavidez (29-0, 24 KOs) could move up to cruiserweight to face the winner of the unification fight between IBF champion Jay Obitaya and WBA and WBO champion Gilberto Zurdo Ramirez.
Beterbiev or next Bivol?
“We have to show impressively in order to make history and face the other monsters in the division,” Jose Benavidez Sr. said. Combat Center TVHe talks about his son David Benavidez needing to look good for David Morrell on February 1st.
“This is the best fight we've ever had. We have a younger fighter. A hungry fighter and he's going to be explosive. It's going to be very exciting. This is a fight we need to showcase our talents and show the world that David (Benavidez) can box, David can hit, he can be aggressive, he can counter.” And he can cut the ring.
“So, there's a lot of things that fans will see in this fight. David Benavidez is only 20 years old (correction: he's 28). The plan is to keep going and fight David Morrell and get a chance with Bivol or Beterbiev and maybe even Zurdo Ramirez.” “That's the plan,” Jose Sr. said.
If Benavidez loses this fight, he could forget about fighting the winner of the Beterbiev vs. Bivol II rematch or moving up to cruiserweight to challenge Gilberto “Zordo” Ramirez for the WBA and WBO titles. Jose Sr. has been intoxicated by his son's success since he was 168, fighting younger and older fighters over the hill. So, naturally, he talks as if his son, Benavidez, can walk among everyone and continue doing what he was doing at super middleweight.
The Mexican monster's last fight at 175 against Oleksandr Gvozdyk on June 15 was supposed to be a wake-up call for Jose Sr., because that bout showed he's not the same guy at light heavyweight that he was at 168 years old.
Middleweight dreams
“We want to confront the monsters of the department,” Jose Sr. said. Zurdo Ramirez just got another belt (at cruiserweight). Yesterday, we saw another hero, Jay. I think they might face each other, and maybe we'll face the winner of that. As I said, David is only 20 years old.
“We're not afraid to lose our unbeaten records, but we're not going to do that. I'm very confident he's going to come in and destroy this guy and go on to bigger and better things,” Jose Benavidez Sr. said.
I hope Jose Sr. doesn't become non-committal if he sees Benavidez fired by Morel and sees all his plans go to waste. This would have happened anyway if Benavidez had been fighting where he should have been all along, at 175, instead of collapsing to beat younger fighters at 168.
This is the typical stuff we see these days, with younger fighters fighting in weight classes they have no business competing at. They can get away with this when they are younger, but when they reach their late 20s or early 30s, the job is done. They are forced to compete in weight classes appropriate to their size.
