Muriel’s superior skill set: Is it too much for Benavidez?
Zab Judah and Anthony Dirrell both feel that interim WBC light heavyweight champion David Benavidez is too experienced for David Morrell (11-0, 9 KOs) and will beat him in their 12-round main event fight on February 1 at T-Mobile Arena. In Las Vegas.
12 years of damage: losses incurred
The wear and tear of a long and arduous 12-year career is beginning to take its toll on “The Mexican Monster” Benavidez. We are witnessing the beginning of the collapse.
Although he is young at twenty-eight years old, he physically looks older, like someone in his mid to late thirties, due to the punishment he received. We see that now, as he comes into fights with multiple injuries, stamina issues, and slow reflexes.
In Benavidez’s last fight, his head resembled a doorstop due to the shots he took from Oleksandr Gvozdyk on June 15.
He wasn’t holding anything back and was getting beaten at will by Gvozdyk. If the Ukrainian fighter had not recently retired for four years, Benavidez likely would have been knocked out. It was hard to watch. Granted, it was his first fight at 175, but it was clear that David had reached his limit. It was a combination of age and fighting where it should have been all along.
Weight bully?
People criticize Benavidez because he fights outside his normal weight class, competing at 168 instead of 175. Although he was small enough to dry weight, he probably wouldn’t have been able to do so had there been a strict 10-pound rehydration treatment. Limits to prevent it from exploding. In other words, Benavidez was a heavy-handed bully, and Judah and Dirrell didn’t mention it.
Judah believes Benavidez (29-0, 24 KOs) will strike Morel early with big punches. He jostles his opponents and punches them without stopping. This is what he did with Dirrell and tried to do with his last opponent, Oleksandr Gvozdyk. It didn’t work in this case.
“I think the fight will last four rounds,” Zab Judah told David Benavidez by knockout Mill City BoxingBenavidez’s choice to suspend David Morell on February 1. “David comes in the first round.
“I think it’s going to take longer than that,” Anthony Dirrell said. “David [Benavidez] He doesn’t have a single punch [power]. It is accumulation. David has some pop, but I don’t see a one-punch knockout.
“David Morell can go on a little bit. Being from Cuba, he can hit as well. Everyone knows that Cubans are made to hit. If I had to lean in one direction, it’s 100 percent David Benavidez because of his resume. We haven’t seen Morel test. We’ve seen David Tested on several occasions.
“We haven’t seen Morel tested in a big old fight of this magnitude. In this fight, everyone is going to want to see this fight. It depends on how Morel fights,” Dirrell said when asked if Morel could go the 12-round distance with Benavidez.
Dirrell has first-hand experience fighting Benavidez on September 28, 2019, and was stopped in the ninth round due to a cut. He stunned him twice with left hooks but was unable to finish him off. Benavidez was much larger than Dirrell and looked like a light heavyweight
Their former fighters
We haven’t seen Benavidez get tested in a big fight either. It’s not just Morel. Dirrell was in his mid-30s when he fought Benavidez, and he was in his prime. Also, he was a lot smaller, facing off against the Mexican light heavyweight monster.
Morel has fought better guys in the amateur ranks than Benavidez as a pro. It’s not even close. Morrell has the advantage of experience against quality competition. The best fighters Benavidez fought were mainly older, experienced fighters like these guys:
– Demetrius Andrade: 36
– Oleksandr Gvozdyk: 37
– David Lemieux: 35
– Rumer Alexis Angulo: 40
Caleb Plante wasn’t that old when he faced Benavidez in 2023, but Canelo Alvarez had already knocked him out in 2021. He didn’t have the power. This is the only younger, world-class fighter that Benavidez has defeated. The rest were elderly.
“David, it’s the backlog he’s getting to [Morrell]. He’s got some pop. Every punch, you’ll feel it. “I think Morrell is going to put up a fight,” Dirrell said.
“Do you think David Morrell can fire David Benavidez?” Judas said.
“Benavidez could take a big hit,” Dirrell said. “We didn’t really see Benavidez get hurt. I never saw that. He was taken down, but I think it was a quick knockdown.” [against Ronald Gavril on September 8, 2017, in their first fight. He was a little too aggressive, but that’s Benavidez.”
If Morrell is forced into a war on the inside, he’s got a chance to knock out Benavidez because he’s a lot stronger and bigger than the guys he’s been fighting at 168. Gvozdyk couldn’t fight on the inside. He mostly lit up Benavidez from the outside after he gassed out in the second half of the fight. Again, Dirrell had Benavidez hurt, and was a lot smaller.
Morrell’s Youthful Advantage
“I think he calmed down a little bit. He’s a good counter-puncher. So, blocking and coming back with his own counter. I think it’ll be a good fight. I think it’ll be a chess match at first. Then it’ll heat up in the middle of the rounds,” said Dirrell.
“I see it going four rounds,” said Judah.
“No, I don’t see Morrell banging it out with him like that,” said Dirrell. “I see him moving, getting his shots in, but be on the move. I think he’s going to mix it up at times because of the blood, but I don’t see a mix-up like that.”
Morrell, 26, is two years younger than Benavidez but is more youthful and has that freshness factor going for him. He hasn’t pounded for 12 years in the pro ranks like Benavidez, and that shows. So, Judah and Dirrell are looking at the experience factor as a positive rather than as a major negative for the Mexican Monster Benavidez. When it’s early in a fighter’s career, experience is important, but not when a guy has been in the game since 2013. Then it’s a negative.
“So, you’re saying that Morrell has to take him into the deeper waters for him to win?” said Judah.
“You have to, but Benavidez gets stronger as it goes, too, though. We got to see what Morrell’s condition is going into the fight,” said Dirrell. “I see David in Vegas right now. If you don’t go to Vegas a few weeks before, it’s over.”
