David Benavidez will make his debut at light-heavyweight next month, but it doesn’t sound like he has any plans to stop moving up the divisions anytime soon.
The 27-year-old has long chased a shot at undisputed super-middleweight champion Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez, but it seems that the he has given up waiting and will now move up to the stacked 175lbs division for his next bout.
The former two-time WBC 168 champion will face Oleksandr Gvozdyk on June 15 as part of a huge card in Las Vegas.
Turki Alalshikh, the man who holds the key to boxing in Saudi Arabia, has also made no secret of his intentions to match Benavidez against the winner of Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol, a clash that will see one man walk away with all the belts.
However, it seems that the man himself has even loftier plans, targeting another newly crowned undisputed champion – this time at heavyweight in Oleksandr Usyk.
Speaking to ES NEWS, Benavidez says he still holds out hope of ‘getting’ the Canelo fight, but has his eye on the Ukrainian further down the line.
“I’ve still got a while to get to heavyweight but in the future that would be cool. Let’s get Canelo first and then we’ll think about Usyk afterwards.”
Usyk defeated Tyson Fury last weekend to become the first man to ever hold all four major heavyweight belts. A fight against Benavidez seems highly unlikely with Usyk tied to a rematch against ‘The Gypsy King’ and rumours that he may hang up the gloves soon after.
