Trainer Stephen Edwards feels David Morrell lacks the ring IQ to defeat WBC interim light heavyweight champion David Benavidez in their February 1 fight.
Stephen thinks that WBA ‘ordinary’ 175-lb champion Morrell (11-0, 9 KOs) relies too much on his power and explosiveness and doesn’t have a bag of tricks he can rely on when it doesn’t work.
Edwards notes that Morrell struggled in his Aug. 3 fight against Radivoje Kalajdzic in his debut at 175, but he was never in danger of losing. Indeed, Morrell dominated every round of the fight, but he was occasionally taken big shots by Hot Rod, who can punch.
This guy has better power than Benavidez, and Morrell had to be careful at times. Mostly he nailed Hot Rod with hard shots at will and hurt him multiple times.
Stephen faced ‘The Mexican Monster’ Benavidez (29-0, 24 KOs) when he defeated his fighter Caleb Plant last year on March 25, 2023, and it did not work out well for them. He came away from that fight impressed with Benavidez.
Plant was too weak and small for Benavidez, who looked like a cruiserweight in the ring in that fight,
Morrell vs Benavidez will be on February 1st on PBC Prime Video PPV at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. This is the first fight of Benavidez’s 11-year career where he faces someone in a 50-50 fight who has a chance to beat him.
The closest he has come so far to an opponent who had a chance to beat him was in his last fight against Oleksandr Gvozdyk in his debut at 175 on June 15. Benavidez got tired early in that fight and really hammered Gvozdyk from rounds 7 to 12.
“It’s a fight that David Morrell can win, but I don’t know if he will,” Stephen Edwards said. Battle hype about the David Benavidez vs. David Morrell fight on February 1st. “He had problems with ‘Hot Rod’ but he didn’t lose.
“There’s a difference when you go back to your corner, and you don’t know if you’re up. I need to see what his adjustments are like when he doesn’t win the fight or when the other guy puts mental pressure on him where it starts to create a little doubt.
“I’m very impressed with David Morrell, but he kind of relies on his power, his strength and his size. He is way too big to fight at 168. He’s a big guy. I’m very impressed with him, but a lot of the guys he’s fought have been so much smaller than him where he doesn’t have to go into his bag of tricks to rely on other things like his IQ.
Like Benavidez, Morrell was too big for the 168-lb division, but he doesn’t fight at 175. Both of them fought smaller fighters at super middleweight. It wasn’t just Morrell who was fighting a lot of smaller guys. Benavidez was always bigger than his opponents during the 11 years he fought at 168.
“I’m not saying he has it, but I haven’t seen it,” Edwarda says of Morrell’s ring IQ. “I’m going to pick David Benavidez. I think his IQ is greatly underestimated. His defense is underrated. People say he’s easy to beat, but if you fight like he fights, you’re going to get hit if you walk up to a guy. Plus, he’s a big guy, but he takes a lot of punches.
“He’s very good at hitting with you. He can fight back. He is very aware of his defense. He’s not in there getting his head chopped back all over the place. If you see him getting hit, look at him very closely. Even when he does get hit, his hands are up. So, the punches are going to have to go through his gloves. He deflects a lot of the power,” Edwards said of Benavidez.
