Jose Benavidez Snr, the father and trainer of David Benavidez, says his son has plans of campaigning at cruiserweight in the near future.
Benavidez Snr revealed to Fight Hub TV that his son is weighing up options to challenge WBO 200-pound titlist Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez if his quest to face the winner of Artur Beterbiev-Dmitry Bivol undisputed light heavyweight championship falls through.
Benavidez Snr described the fight with Ramirez as a possibility.
“Yeah, that's what we could do right away so that's what we're looking for,” said Benavidez Snr. “For some reason, if this fight with the winner of Beterbiev and Bivol is not happening or whatever, we'll definitely go to a cruiserweight to fight Zurdo Ramirez and hopefully that happens.”
Before he can land his dream fight with any of the three targeted fighters – Beterbiev, Bivol, and Ramirez – Benavidez has to cross a February 1 hurdle against Cuba’s David Morrell for the WBA interim 175-pound belt in Las Vegas.
“This was the right fight for David right now,” insisted Benavidez Snr. “The reason we took this fight was because he's a champion in that division. We wanna take his belt away and plus he's also a two-time world champion. He's a strong fighter, young, and I think to be honest, dude, everywhere I go, everybody's really happy about this fight because at the end of the day, Morrell is a good fighter. He's a very dangerous fighter.
“But I think David is on a different level. He’s super focused mentally, spiritually and at the end of the day, we gotta go through him in order to go to the other fighters, like better people and maybe Ramirez.”
If Benavidez, 29-0 (24 KOs) beats Morrell, 11-0 (9 KOs) on February 1, his topmost target is the winner between Beterbiev, 21-0 (20 KOs) and Bivol, 23-1 (12 KOs), presuming they rematch. The two Russia fighters slugged it out in a thrilling encounter in Riyadh last month, with Beterbiev prevailing with a close majority decision win.
When asked about his take on a rematch between Beterbiev and Bivol, Benavidez Snr said “I'm gonna say that it’s kind of the same a little bit. It was super close. In my opinion, I thought Bivol won by a little bit, just very little bit but at the end of the day, like I said, I'm not a judge and I see the rematch kind of the same.
“Those guys are the best and they're on top of the game so I have to say that it's gonna be the same because nothing really changed in the rounds in between. Everything kinda stayed the same.”
Bernard Neequaye is a sports journalist with a specialty in boxing coverage. He wrote a boxing column titled “From The Ringside” in his native Ghana for years. He can be reached on X (formerly Twitter) at @BernardNeequaye, LinkedIn at Bernard Neequaye and through email at bernardneequaye@gmail.com.