David Benavidez spent several of the past years trying to secure a showdown with Canelo Alvarez.
Canelo has been the best super-middleweight on the planet in recent times, becoming undisputed in the weight division, though he has since been stripped of his IBF belt.
He still remains the unified champion, and has defeated fighters such as Gennady Golovkin, Caleb Plant, Callum Smith, Billy Joe Saunders, Jaime Munguia and Edgar Berlanga at 168lbs.
One fighter that Canelo has never stepped in the ring with though is Benavidez, the undefeated former WBC super-middleweight champion and current WBC light-heavyweight interim champion, who many believe would give Alvarez his toughest test to date.
It looked like the fight could be close at one stage, but it wasn’t to be, and Benavidez has now revealed to Cigar Talk how much Canelo allegedly turned down for the showdown.
“This fight isn’t happening because he doesn’t want to fight me. There is no other way around it. He doesn’t want to fight me because he’s scared of me. Look at him, Canelo is in the spot where he’s at because he’s fought the best and now he’s making the biggest bags.
“He’s all about making money now he doesn’t care about challenge, but the reason I’m saying he’s scared is because they offered him $70 million to fight me, that’s before pay-per-view. Imagine how much he would make off pay-per-view.”
Benavidez has since moved up to light-heavyweight, and will take on WBA regular champion David Morrell in January, and respected analyst Teddy Atlas has given a bold prediction for that fight.
