David Benavidez recently made his debut at light-heavyweight after trying and failing to secure a fight against Saul ‘Canelo‘ Alvarez one division down.
With the win at 175, the 27-year-old is the WBC’s interim champion both at that weight as well as 168. Mauricio Sulaiman, president of the sanctioning body, told Seconds Out he was waiting on Benavidez to choose which path he would walk.
Speaking to 210BoxingTV, his father and trainer Joes Benavidez Sr has now confirmed that correspondence has been sent to enforce the mandatory challenge against Canelo, who holds all four belts at 168.
“The letter has been sent … We got an extension for two more weeks to submit the letter, so everything’s there. We’re there to fight in September if Canelo wants to fight in September, David will be ready to fight September. If not, he’ll be ready in December or somewhere around there to fight at 175.
But if the opportunity is there to fight Canelo the letter has already been sent and everything is good, it’s been approved. Now it’s for Canelo to make that decision when he wants to fight.”
Benavidez Sr then responded to the reports that Canelo was in talks to face Chris Eubank Jr in September rather than one of his mandatories.
“I see they’re in negotiations with Eubank. I never heard that. I thought he would probably fight Berlanga or the Canadian guy or someone else. Eubank? Come on. I don’t know anybody who wants to see that fight.”
“Imagine [Canelo], everybody’s telling him that he’s scared of the Mexican Monster. When he retires that’s gonna be something he won’t want to here. Take care of it now, win or lose … He’s done a lot for the sport of boxing, but without fighting David he’s not gonna get that respect that he deserves. He says that David doesn’t bring anything to the table – why not fight him and get it over with? Shut everybody’s mouth.”
An announcement is expected soon as to the undisputed champion’s next move.
