Benavidez: “I scared Morrell!”

David Benavidez is still convinced he has David Morrell “afraid” of him because of the hard push he gave him during their face-off at the December 17th media workout to promote their February 1st fight.

‘The Mexican Monster’ uses fear to promote the fight, and he often talks about it in his interviews and says he sees it in Morrell.

This focus on fear is useless because it won’t stop Morrell from throwing punches on February 1st. Looking at Benavidez, you can tell he is worried about this fight. There are millions at stake for him.

Benavidez’s fear projection

Morrell won the Cuban gold medal twice Julio Cesar La Cruzand he didn’t seem scared. That guy is a better fighter than Benavidez by a mile.

It seems important to him to scare Morrell. If Benavidez believed in himself, he wouldn’t focus so much on seeing fear in the Cuban. The fact that he didn’t want to fight Morrell for two solid years is an indication that it was he who lived in fear.

“I scared him. I definitely know he is 100% afraid of me. I’m going to beat him on February 1st,” David Benavidez told Bet On Yourself YouTube channel, talking about David Morrell.

“If I could sit on my punches, I would have gotten that guy out of there,” Benavidez said of his last opponent, Oleksandr Gvozdyk, whom he beat on June 15 last year. “That’s a big part of the reason I made this fight happen (winning the WBA ‘ordinary’ light heavyweight title from Morrell).

“Another part is that I have to go in there and silence this man. I can show the world what I’m all about, and I get to beat up David Morrell in front of everyone. If you beat the best of the best, the money will come. What matters to me is the respect you get from the people, and the money is going to come, it’s going to come,” Benavidez said.

The bit about Benavidez not being able to sit on his punches appears to some as if he is making excuses to try to explain away his poor performance against Gvozdyk. I would have been better off if Benavidez had shut up and admitted that he struggled in his first fight at 175. Bringing up injuries sounds weak.

It didn’t look like Benavidez was injured, but one can understand why he would mention his ailments. He was terrible in that fight, which should have been scored as a 12-round draw.

The judges gave Benavidez the decision, but he 100% looked like he didn’t do enough to win. So, his mention of injuries is now permanently understandable. This is called ‘damage control’.

False bravado

“David Morrell is a good fighter. The Cuban boxing school, they are technical fighters. The thing about me is that I have a lot of experience. I have been in the ring with many great champions, not only in fighting, but in sparring. I have the dog in me. I just have to go in there and activate it,” Benvidez said.

Speaking of the ‘Mexican Monster’, he will try to out fight Morrell, hoping he can run through his shots to knock him out or win a grueling decision. Benavidez is tailor-made for Morrell with his emphasis on combination striking, which will leave him wide open for the Cuban’s counter punches.

It’s a risky way to fight Morrell because he’s not an old, undersized fighter like many of the guys Benavidez beat when he campaigned at 168 against smaller guys.

Sick hand speed‼️ Who do you have Feb 1? https://t.co/jCHBTyF3Y3

— Leonard Ellerbe (@LEllerbe) January 3, 2025