In an interesting interview with Sean Zittel, David Benavidez said he was recently offered a big fight with Terence Crawford, the fight to take place in August, down (for Benavidez) at 160 pounds. Benavidez as we know, is actually going up in weight, to 175, where he will face Oleksandr Gvodyk in June. Benavidez says Turki Alalshikh called him and offered him a middleweight fight with Crawford.
This fight, if it had been made, would of course have been quite fascinating; with “Bud” going up two weights divisions and with “The Mexican Monster” dropping down a weight division from 168. But Benavidez said there is simply no way he could ever make the middleweight limit, otherwise he would have taken the fight without a doubt.
“I had talked to Turki, great guy. They had wanted me to fight in August,” Benavidez said. “I told them I’m with PBC – we got this big card [on June 15th]. So, I think it was just a conversation of opening the doors that this might be a reality that we could make this happen. We never got to that point. He did mention to me one fighter. He wanted me to go down to 160 and fight Crawford. I said, ‘Bro, I cannot do that.’ If I was able to make 160, that would be amazing, but I can’t. I don’t remember the last time I weighed 160. I would love to share the ring with him but not at 160.”
As we know, Crawford will next challenge Israil Madrimov for a belt at 154, while Benavidez, if he comes through okay against Gvodyk, will become next in line to face the winner of the superb fight that is coming up on June 1, between unbeaten rival light heavyweight champions Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol. So Benavidez, though he may have lost out on a fight with Crawford due to his inability to ever come close to making 160 pounds, has a massive fight to look ahead to all the same.
If Benavidez can beat Gvodyk and then the winner of the Bivol-Beterbiev fight, he will perhaps be pretty close to being where Crawford is right now, at the top of the pound-for-pound charts.
You have to hand it to Turki, though – he sure is trying his best to make all the mega-fights he possibly can.
