A showdown between David Benavidez and Canelo Alvarez has been sought after by fans for years now.
Benavidez had been the mandatory challenger to Canelo’s WBC super-middleweight title up until last August when he opted to make the move up to 175lbs due to frustrations from not landing the fight. In his divisional debut, he defeated Oleksandr Gvozdyk to capture the interim version of the WBC crown. A win over David Morrell came next and the 28-year-old was elevated to fill champion when Dmitry Bivol vacated the belt.
Speaking to the media recently, Benavidez said that he is enjoying his campaign at 175 and no longer looking to go back to super-middleweight, even to make the Canelo fight.
“To be honest with you I don’t think a fight with me and Canelo would ever happen at 168, I don’t wanna go back to 168. I’m good at 175, and I’m world champion here, so if he wants to come up to fight at 175 I’m all good with that but right now I can’t live in this fantasy world.”
Canelo has said in the past that the only fight a light-heavy he is interested in is a rematch with Bivol, meaning the clash with Benavidez is further away than ever.
Benavidez is set to make the first defence of his WBC world title against Britain’s Anthony Yarde on November 22 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
As for Canelo, the 34-year-old is just a couple of months away from making a defence of his undisputed super-middleweight championship against Terence Crawford, set to take place on Saturday September 13 at the Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.
