WBA ‘regular’ light heavyweight champion David Morrell vs. David Benavidez’s fight on February 1st will be for the WBC’s mandatory slot. The winner will take on the Artur Beterbiev vs. Dmitry Bivol II rematch winner of their clash on February 22nd.
The WBC has reportedly confirmed that the Morrell-Benavidez winner will be the next challenger for the title. Fans already expected that to happen, as it would look bad if Beterbiev and Bivol fought a third straight time.
Even if Bivol wins the rematch, fans would rather see someone else get a shot at the four belts than see Bivol and Beterbiev play tea party for years.
There shouldn’t even be a rematch this time because Bivol lost the fight, and he didn’t show much in the second half of the fight last October and gave it to Beterbiev, who was fresh off knee surgery for a ruptured meniscus in May 2024. A one-legged Beterbiev defeated Bivol.
The Excuse Game
“I think what made me select Morrell is because I have a lot to prove. Not only to the world but to myself,” said David Benavidez to the PPV YouTube channel. “I want to be the most dangerous fighter in boxing today. To do that, you have to take out the most dangerous threats.
“David Morrell, he’s there. He actually has a belt at 175, the WBA. So, we get to beat David Morrell, prove myself to everybody, and I get to add another belt to my collection,” an overconfident-sounding Benavidez said.
“I get more knockouts and stoppages when I go in there, and I don’t even think about the knockouts. I feel like now, I’m putting more emphasis on getting the knockout, and in my last fight, obviously, I didn’t get it because of some injuries. But now I’m just going to go in there and do my game plan, and the knockout is going to come on its own,” said Benavidez.
In his last fight against Oleksandr Gvozdyk, Benavidez was loading up, and his power had no effect at 175. He tried his usual speedy combinations, but that didn’t work either. Gvozdyk lit him up, making him pay for being sloppy with his combos. Benavidez can’t fight like that at 175 because he’s not facing pillow punchers like Caleb Plant or the old, smaller fighters like David Lemieuz, Demetrius Andrade, and Roamer Alexis Angulo.
“I let my hands rest; I let my cut rest and everything. It got healed up, and now I’m 100% rest for this fight,” said Benavidez.
Fans don’t believe Benavidez about his hand injuries, which he’s been using as an excuse for his poor performance against Gvozdyk on June 15th last year. It just looked like Benavidez’s power didn’t travel up to 175 from 168, where he’d been fighting smaller, older fighters.
I can’t wait to hear what excuses Benavidez will have if he struggles again and either loses or looks horrible. Will it be another injury excuse? If so, why isn’t he telling the fans he’s 100% now? The excuses make it hard to take Benavidez’s word when he says things.
He can’t just admit that he faced someone good for the first time, a fighter his size at 175, and he couldn’t dominate like he’d been doing against the small old guys he’d built his resume off of.
