David Benavidez may have made a mistake by choosing to face ‘regular’ WBA light heavyweight champion David Morrell on February 1st.
Benavidez (29-0, 24 KOs) has been distracting the Cuban Morrell (11-0, 9 KOs) for the past two years, ignoring his cries and focusing on holding light fights against the old remnants, David Lemieux, Caleb Plant, and Demetrius. Andrade.
After Morrell Jr’s last fight against Radivoje Kalajdzic on August 3, which was not one of his best, Benavidez and his father/trainer, Jose Benavidez Sr., finally agreed to face him. Per Salvador Rodriguez at X, Benavidez-Morrell will be fighting on the PBC show on February 1 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
It’s too late for Benavidez to change his mind and not continue fighting Morrell because if he loses, he can forget about the big payday against the winner of the Artur Beterbiev vs. Dmitry Bivol 2 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and to mine gold in the fight.
Benavidez Must Change His Style Against Morrell
David Benavidez looked awful in his debut at 175 against the light heavyweight champion Oleksandr Gvozdyk on June 15. In that fight Benavidez won by a 12-round decision, he was eliminated after six rounds and received a major penalty in the last six rounds, more than any other fight of his career.
Final punch statistics
Benavidez landed 270 of 749 punches for a 36% connection rate. Gvozdyk, on the other hand, dropped 223 out of 675 for 33%. Gvozdyk punched hard and was a solid fighter on the ground against a tired looking Benavidez.
Benavidez made an excuse after the fight, blaming his disappointing performance on a hand injury. But the fans didn’t believe him because he had been fighting the same way at 168, but his opposition was much smaller than him and not as skilled as Gvozdyk.
As of 2013, he’s beaten ham and eggers for a full decade without going up against fighters his size. He moved up to 175 to fight the likes of Dmitry Bivol, Artur Beterbiev, and Joshua Buatsi.
In the Gvozdyk fight, Benavidez showed that his power hasn’t increased with him from the 168-lb division and that his machine gun fighting style won’t work for him at light heavyweight. Indeed, if Benavidez doesn’t change that style soon, he’ll be worthless, heading to Palookaville, wondering what happened to his once-promising career.
Morrell Hits Benavidez Hard
David Morrell is clearly the top puncher in the 175-lb division today and is too powerful for Benavidez to try to fight him the same way he did at 168 or in his fight with Gvozdyk.
Benavidez took a nasty beating from Gvozdyk and was tagged after the fight. He looked like he was in a torture chamber after that fight. For a volume puncher with below average power like Benavidez, it would be dangerous for him to fight Morrell and try to wear him down.
The risk of Morrell getting fired is very high, and it wouldn’t end well for him. Benavidez’s style was made to order for Morrell. His last opponent, Kalajdzic, had a very difficult style for Morrell due to his counter punching and power. Kalajdzic is one of the biggest punchers in the 175-lb division and has more power than Benavidez. Morrell should have been aware of him because of the written gun.
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