LAS VEGAS – Spend enough time around boxing’s most fervent followers, and a persistent question arises: Who’s the sport’s next big draw?
David Benavidez is intent on becoming the one.
Best known as the unbeaten former 168-pound champion avoided by Canelo Alvarez, the Phoenix product has the ability to summon the sport’s massive Latino fan base, is under 30, lives for knockouts and runs to the best fight possible.
“I want to go and achieve my greatness. I don’t want to sit around and have someone hand it to me,” Benavidez told BoxingScene following an animated and heated news conference with his Saturday night opponent at T-Mobile Arena, fellow unbeaten light-heavyweight David Morrell of Cuba.
“You’ve gotta go take it. Canelo Alvarez did what he did and he’s a tremendous fighter, but this is a new era. There’s new fighters. The landscape of boxing is different. I’m going to go in there and beat all the guys they think I can’t beat. And I will be the last man standing.”
Benavidez, 29-0 (24 KOs), insists he’s enacting his personal sea change for the sport, bypassing the offer of a pedestrian opponent this winter to pursue the 27-year-old Morrell, 11-0 (9 KOs), who two fights ago in Minnesota “darn near killed a man,” according to an eyewitness to Morrell’s hospitalized second-round knockout victim.
A frightening opponent indeed.
Benavidez could have followed Alvarez’s lead and taken on a lesser opponent without losing his standing in the sport. He would retain his position as WBC interim light heavyweight champion, in line to next fight the winner of the Feb. 22 Artur Beterbiev-Dmitry Bivol undisputed light-heavyweight title fight in Saudi Arabia. Instead, he went after the most formidable non-champion available.
“With Canelo, he could’ve taken the fight with me. If he thinks he can beat me, beat me,” Benavidez reasoned in a private series of interviews with PPV.COM live-chat hosts. “That’s what I’m doing with David Morrell. He called me out. I’m making some good money and beating his ass – killing two birds with one stone.”
It’s that attitude adjustment that Benavidez is banking on to accelerate his rise, along with his fighting style and a new emphasis on trash talking.
During Thursday’s contentious news conference, Benavidez shared a heated exchange with Morrell’s promoter, Louis DeCubas Snr, and also roared at Morrell after prior events where Morrell threw a belt at Benavidez and the pair went chest-to-chest at a photoshoot.
When someone asked Benavidez if his uncharacteristic behavior was playing into Morrell’s hands, Benavidez revealed that he was carrying out a premeditated strategy.
“At the end of the day, we’re selling fights, right?” he said. “Would you rather I say [Morrell is] a good fighter? I’m trying to sell the fight. I’m trying to sell pay-per-views. I’m trying to generate interest because if I don’t say anything, this fucking guy’s not going to say anything. People are paying hard-earned money for this fight.
“If you’re a person in love with beating the shit out of people, you need this type of interaction. I’ve been boxing my whole life, since I was three years old. This is something that amplifies the way I feel and this is what people want to see. They want to see two fighters who don’t like each other going at it. … Let’s give them something to see.”
DeCubas Snr believed the encounter was as sincere as it gets.
“We know all about Benvidez's bullying and all of that other stuff,” DeCubas said. “I knew it was coming. But when you behave like that, it's because of fear. I saw that fear in him. Look, I think he knows that some time during the fight he's going to realize he shouldn’t have taken this fight in the first place.”
Benavidez is predicting victory by knockout.
“I’m going in there to inflict as much damage as possible,” he said. “Don’t think it’s all big shots. I’ve put the perfect game plan together. I’m going to pick my shots, break him down little by little and get him out of there. I guarantee you I will stop him, knock him out.
“I’m 100 percent confident in my skills. I’m going to make you feel me – my punching power, my combinations, make you feel uncomfortable the whole fight. I get it working. I know how to control my style better than anyone. I don’t get hit too much. I feel I’m one of the most accurate punchers in boxing. At the end of the day, when it’s me and you, man to man, I’m going to be the one on top.”
During the PPV.COM segment, Benavidez elaborated to Hall of Fame broadcaster Jim Lampley, who spoke of Morrell’s sophisticated training in the Cuban school of boxing that includes more than 100 amateur bouts.
“This is not an amateur fight,” Benavidez answered. “He can be technically superior for three rounds, but if he’s getting hit, when David Benavidez is putting that pressure on you, landing combinations, that all goes out the window. I know when I get in there with a great fighter, a greater David Benavidez will come out. I know I can go toe-to-toe. If I have to hunt him down, I will. If I have to box, I’ll out-box him. I’ll be the destroyer.”
Benavidez built that mindset during a series of rugged sparring sessions against another Alvarez rival, former long-reigning middleweight champion Gennadiy Golovkin.
“That’s why I have the confidence I have, [being] Golovkin’s main sparring partner as a kid,” Benavidez told PPV.COM’s Dan Canobbio. “Legendary sparring sessions of iron sharpening iron that put an imprint on me and my boxing spirit, and that’s how I know nobody can mess with me.”
Benavidez has taken out the tricky former middleweight champion Demetrius Andrade and former super middleweight champion Caleb Plant, also in Las Vegas.
“I’ve been going against all these people. That’s what’s making me great. They keep saying I’m going to get out-boxed, but when the fight ends, I’m still getting my hand raised with another belt,” Benavidez told Canobbio. “I’m achieving my greatness by beating up people they say I can’t beat.”
With so much boxing action moving to Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh Season events under the supervision of power broker Turki Alalshikh, Benavidez is basking in the news that a strong turnout is expected in boxing’s capital.
“When you think about Las Vegas, you think about the Pacquiao fights, the Mayweather fights. Now, I’m the Las Vegas kid,” he said. “We bring a good crowd, people like to see these news conferences where we talk a lot of shit and every fight gets bigger and bigger. I’m enjoying this moment.
“I’m trying to be the face of boxing, so I’m trying to make as much noise as possible. I’m not worried about Turki. We’re on PBC, in Las Vegas [and] I care about headlining fights for PBC. Not everyone can make it over there [to Saudi], so I feel great that I’m one of the frontrunners doing the fights here.”
Lampley asked Benavidez if, in victory, he’d rather fight a triumphant Bivol for the undisputed light heavyweight title or try once more for Canelo.
“The only thing the Canelo fight brings me is money,” Benavidez said. “I want the respect of the fans.
“I know a fight with Canelo Alvarez is way easier than Bivol because Bivol is the one who beat Canelo Alvarez. Now, I’m interested in beating Bivol, winning all the titles, and winning all the respect of the fans.”