David Benavidez has long been chasing a world title fight with Saul ‘Canelo‘ Alvarez but the Mexican is now closing in on a fight with Terence Crawford.
Benavidez – the youngest ever super-middleweight world champion – looked to win back his old belt by becoming WBC mandatory challenger for Canelo, but the latter has been dismissive of the fight, saying things such as Benavidez has nothing to offer and that he would only sign for eye-watering sums of money in the region of $250 million.
As such, Benavidez has had to move on and indeed up. His first fight at light heavyweight came in June last year and saw him beat Oleksandr Gvozdyk, and now he is set to face fellow unbeaten fighter David Morrell this Saturday.
Despite the different divisions, fans still want to see the Canelo match-up, but the Mexican unified champion is instead set to announce a fight against fellow four-weight world champion Crawford that will see the American jump up two weight-classes.
Benavidez’s father and trainer Jose Sr spoke to FightHype and rubbished the fight on those grounds.
“I would be embarrassed to ask for that fight for David Benavidez. Benavidez is too big, Canelo is too big, I’m not interested, I don’t think it’s a fair fight, it’s not an equal fight, Canelo is just too big for Crawford.”
Crawford, who is now 37 and in the twilight of his career, will have to come up 14lbs to meet Canelo, leading many to agree with Benavidez that it is too tall of a task even for a man of his skillset. The fight is reportedly being made for September 13 in Las Vegas.
