David Benavidez is seen as one of the biggest punchers currently in boxing.
‘The Mexican Monster’ is unbeaten with a record of 30-0, with 24 of those wins coming by knockout, leading to him becoming a two-time super-middleweight champion and the current WBC interim light-heavyweight champion.
During his time in the ring he has beaten fellow big punchers such as David Morrell, Oleksandr Gvozdyk and David Lemieux, but none of those made the cut when it came to naming the hardest hitter Benavidez has ever faced.
Instead, it was a man that Benavidez has spent many rounds sparring over the years, telling BS With Jake Paul that the biggest puncher he ever faced was former unified middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin.
“He was the hardest puncher I’d ever been in the ring with. He’s also very intelligent, so for me every time we’d go in there we’d try and kill each other.”
Benavidez first began sparring Golovkin as a 15-year-old, and he explained how some of their infamous sparring sessions would go.
“When I first saw him getting ready he gave me the coldest stare, I will never forget it. He’s looking at you like ‘you’re in for something right now.’
“We’re in there sparring and this is why I stayed with Golovkin the whole time and I became his main sparring partner, because we’re sparring and we both go for a left hook at the same time to the body and we both hit each other. I get hurt and he gets hurt.
“I know he got hurt because I heard him grunt and he hurt me. We kind of looked at each other and stepped back. From there I sparred him until 20. I was his main sparring partner.”
Golovkin’s record stands at 42 wins, 2 defeats and 1 draw, with his only blemishes coming in his trilogy with Canelo Alvarez, and while the Kazakh is yet to officially announce his retirement, it’s expected that he won’t return to the ring.
As for Benavidez, he looks set to take on undisputed light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol later this year, after Benavidez’s promoter revealed they won’t be stepping aside.
