David Benavidez hopes Jose Uzcategui serves more than a six-month suspension for failing a pre-fight test for a performance-enhancing drug last month.

Benavidez believes that if punishment from boxing commissions in the United States isn’t consistently commensurate with the potentially lethal consequences of using PEDs, it won’t deter fighters from trying to cheat. Venezuela’s Uzcategui tested positive for Recombinant erythropoietin (EPO) during a test administered by the Voluntary Anti-Doping Association, which runs the WBC’s “Clean Boxing Program,” and was removed from their fight.

The unbeaten Benavidez instead will encounter Kyrone Davis in the 12-round main event Saturday night of a “Showtime Championship Boxing” doubleheader from Footprint Center in Phoenix, Benavidez’s hometown. As he prepares to face Davis, Benavidez hasn’t forgotten Uzcategui’s transgression.

“This is definitely something that has to be taken very serious,” Benavidez told krikya360.com. “Steroids is a serious problem. You know, he has to pay the punishment. I definitely feel like he needs to be punished a little bit more [than six months].”

The 24-year-old Benavidez also pointed out that Canelo Alvarez served a suspension he considers too short for his PED ordeal early in 2018.

Alvarez twice tested positive for clenbuterol in February 2018, which led to the Nevada State Athletic Commission suspending him for six months.

Failing those tests caused Alvarez’s lucrative middleweight championship rematch versus rival Gennadiy Golovkin to be postponed for four months, from May 2018 until September 2018. Alvarez, 31, has long claimed that eating contaminated meat in his native Mexico triggered his positive test for clenbuterol, which has a similar effect on athletes to steroids.

“They’re very lenient on Canelo,” Benavidez said. “They let Canelo do whatever he wants. That’s why he was able to get that short suspension. Suspensions for [PEDs] should be for almost a year or a year-and-a-half. It’s nothing to play with. I think people have to be punished more.”

Nevertheless, Benavidez (24-0, 21 KOs) hopes an impressive victory over Davis (16-2-1, 6 KOs), of Wilmington, Delaware, leads to a super middleweight title unification showdown with Alvarez in May. Guadalajara’s Alvarez (57-1-2, 39 KOs) noted after his 11th-round knockout of Caleb Plant (21-1, 12 KOs) this past Saturday night in Las Vegas that he plans to return to the ring early in May.

Benavidez-Davis will headline Showtime’s two-bout broadcast from the home arena of the NBA’s Phoenix Suns. The telecast will open at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT with a 10-round junior middleweight match in which Benavidez’s older brother, Jose Benavidez Jr. (27-1, 18 KOs), will square off against Argentina’s Francisco Torres (17-3, 5 KOs).

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for krikya360.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.