David Benavidez’s father, Jose Benavidez Sr, says he wants undisputed light heavyweight champion Artur Beterbiev if they successfully defeat WBA ‘regular’ champ David Morrell in their fight on January 25th.
Jose Sr. thinks Beterbiev would be a good fight for Benavidez (29-0, 24 KOs). He’d also like Dmitry Bivol for his son because it would give him the opportunity to defeat someone who beat Canelo Alvarez in 2022.
Jose Sr. is still bitter that Canelo chose not to fight Benavidez all these years and then recently mentioned an asking price of $200 million to fight him. If Bivol loses the rematch with Beterbiev, it won’t worth fighting him.
Artur Beterbiev (21-0, 20 KOs) will be the guy that Benavidez will be fighting if he defeats Bivol in their rematch in 2025. The second fight still hasn’t been confirmed, but it’s likely to.
The worst nightmare for Benavidez would be Beterbiev losing the rematch with Bivol and then the two fighters meeting in a trilogy. Benavidez would have to wait for the third fight to happen between those guys before he’d get a crack at the belts.
“David’s next fight is David Morrell. Everyone is super excited about it. We’ve been trying to make that fight for three years, but I believe David Morrell needed a little more experience to show the world that he deserves this fight,” said Jose Benavidez Sr. to Probox TV about David Benavidez fighting Cuban David Morrell next on January 25th.
Obviously, Team Benavidez hasn’t been trying too hard to make the fight with Morrell for the last three years because they’ve been the ones that have ignored him. If they had wanted the fight with Morrell, it would have happened a long time ago.
They waited until now, after Morrell’s unimpressive performance against Radivoje Kalajdzic on August 3rd at the BMO Stadium in Los Angeles, before they decided they wanted to fight him.
“David called him and said, ‘Hey, I want to make this fight. Let’s make it happen.’ It got made right away. I’m super excited about fighting a young talent, a strong fighter, and I think it’s going to be a tough fight,” said Jose Sr. about how the fight with Morrell was finally made.
“Hopefully, we can get an opportunity to fight Beterbiev. He just won on Saturday. So, hopefully, we can get that, but right now, we’re focused on David Morrell. We got to look impressive in order to go to the next level,” said Benavidez Sr.
If Benavidez loses to Morrell, Jose Sr. will have to decide which direction to take his son. Will he move him back down to 168 or stick it out at 175, hoping to capture one of the belts after Beterbiev vacates?
