David Benavidez has had his say on who he thinks would give him a harder fight out of Canelo Alvarez and Dmitry Bivol.
The 28-year-old from Phoenix, Arizona has been linked with a fight against the Mexican superstar for two years, ever since he became mandatory challenger to his WBC super middleweight title. Despite the persistence of Benavidez, a fight could not be made which led to him making the move up to light heavyweight.
Benavidez has had an impressive start to his campaign at 175lbs, where he has captured the WBC ‘Interim’ title and now remains in pole position to fight for the full WBC world title in the near future.
That is currently held by Artur Beterbiev after the Russian star captured the undisputed light heavyweight championship with a win over Bivol last October. Their highly anticipated rematch takes place on February 22 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
‘The Monster’ returned to the ring on February 1 where he defeated David Morrell via unanimous decision to claim the 30th win of his career and add the WBA ‘regular’ belt to his collection.
Benavidez was dropped in the penultimate round of the fight, but had done enough across all three of the judges cards to be declared the rightful winner.
In an interview with Jim Lampley, the 28-year-old claimed a fight against Canelo would be ‘easier’ than one against Bivol.
“The only thing that the Canelo fight brings to me is money. I know a fight with Canelo Alvarez is way easier than Bivol, because Bivol is the one that beat Canelo Alvarez.”
Canelo is due to face pound-for-pound star Terence Crawford later this year in a defence of his unified super middleweight titles.
Benavidez revealed last week that he would not drop back down to 168lbs to face Canelo, backing up his claims that the only thing that a fight against the Mexican icon brings him his ‘money’.
