David Benavidez once again says his opponent, WBA ‘regular’ light heavyweight champion David Morrell, will “retire” after the punishment he gives out to him in their main event clash on February 1st at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Benavidez’s Fragile Ego
I don’t know why Benavidez is so stuck on sending Morrell into retirement. It makes him sound insecure as if he can’t stand competition threatening his status. Competition is good, but I wonder why Benavidez is so threatened by it. All I can think is that he doesn’t really believe in himself because people don’t talk the way he did.
Morrell wants to knock Benavidez off his delusional high horse and show the world that he’s not the King of the 175-lb division that he thinks he is. He’s just what they call in Cuba: “A fat little chicken.”
Benavidez’s ego is out of touch with reality, and he definitely needs to adjust to how he’s looked since moving up to 175. He looked like an average fighter in his debut at light heavyweight against Oleksandr Gvozdyk on June 15th. His bragging was the same, but his performance was nowhere near how he’d fought against smaller fighters at 168.
If Benavidez loses this fight to Morrell, it’ll be interesting to see if he still brags about himself in the same way or if he’ll go through a readjustment phase the way most fighters do after they’ve been whipped.
Given that his brother, Jose Benavidez, is still cocky despite losing repeatedly, David will continue to believe he’s the best. That’ll be funny to watch how he acts, as it is with any fighter that has been exposed but still acts as if they’re the king s***.
Morrell’s Power
It would be a mistake for Benavidez to go looking for a knockout in this fight because he’ll leave himself open to getting clipped by Morrell (11-0, 9 KOs). Benavidez seems to be having a hard time mentally adjusting to fighting at 175 and not being the fearsome ‘Mexican Monster’ that he was when he fought at Super Middleweight.
David looked like a cruiserweight after rehydrating in that weight division, and he’d crush his weaker and smaller opposition with size. He had a good hustle going, melting down to fight in a weight division well below his size, and it worked for him, especially with the quality of fighters he was facing. Benavidez didn’t want to fight Morrell and ignored him.
This isn’t Caleb Plant or Demetrius Andrade that Benavidez is fighting. Morrell can punch, and he’s not-looking like both of those two fighters.
Even when the 12-year professional Benavidez, 28, fought at super middleweight, he showed no power and was forced to rely on volume punishing and his massive cruiserweight size to score knockouts of his smaller, mostly lackluster opposition.
Can Benavidez Handle a Real Theat?
When he moved up to 175 last June against Oleksandr Gvozdyk, he had no pop on his punches and was putting everything he had into every shot to generate light-heavyweight power. It didn’t work. Gvozdyk hit a lot harder, and his punches seemed to be thrown with no effort, but you could tell they were thrown with much more force than Benavidez’s.
“I don’t think he’s going to fight after this fight, he’s probably going to retire because I’m going to beat the s*** out of him. I’m going to make an example out of him for the rest of the 175 lb division to see that I’m not playing with nobody,” said David Benavidez to the Gloves Off, talking about his fight against David Morrell in two weeks on February 1st in Las Vegas.
