Dan Rafael believes WBC interim super middleweight champion David Benavidez has the upper hand in his fight against WBA ‘ordinary’ champion David Morrell on February 1.
Journalist Rafael feels that Benavidez (29-0, 24 KOs) has a better chin and punch than Cuban Morrell (11-0, 9 KOs) in this bout, which will be shown live on PBC on Prime Video PPV from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Benavidez’s weakness
Benavidez was injured in the 12th round by former WBC light heavyweight champion Gvozdyk. It was an area he looked weak throughout the fight as the Ukrainian peppered him with jabs and right hands to the body.
Benavidez does NOT take body shots to the head like he can, which is understandable because he is soft with very little muscle in his flabby middle.
His ability to take headshots may be a product of having a large Andre ‘The Giant’ type head on a thin, pear-shaped torso, which allows him to take shots that would normally hurt a typical fighter. Where Benavidez is weak is in the body. If Morrell attacks him there, he can score a body shot stoppage.
Experience factor
“I would lean toward Benavidez. I wouldn’t say because of pedigree, because David Morrell has that deep amateur background of the Cuban system,” said Dan Rafael. Box Social about the fight between David Benavidez and David Morrell on February 1st.
“They’re both athletic in their movie for their age, even though David Morrell has fewer fights because he started late. He left Cuba, and he moved very quickly in the early days of his career. But he didn’t need to have a 1000 fight because he had all that amateur experience, while Benavidez turned pro at age 17. He was more of a work in progress to get him to this point.
“When you look at the records, and you see one guy has less than 15 fights and one guy has 30 fights, you think that guy is a lot older and has a lot more experience. This is not the case. They are both much closer in age and in terms of experience, the amateurs Morrell has makes up for it, while Benavidez has more pro experience.”
Morrell has more experience in the sport than Benavidez, who has 148 rounds as a pro during his 12-year career.
Morrell has 54 rounds, but he was 130-2 as an amateur in Cuba and has more overall rounds against better opposition than Benavidez fought as a pro. Benavidez has fought limited fighters, mostly old guys like Gvozdyk, Demetrius Andrade (36), David Lemieux and Caleb Plant.
Chin and Strength
“I’m leaning towards Benavidez because the combination of his chin and power might be a little better than what Morrell has,” Rafael said.
Morrell (26) is the younger fighter by a little over a year and has never been injured before. It’s hard to say for sure if Benavidez has the better chin or not when Morrell has never been hurt. Power-wise, Morrell is by far the better puncher. Rafael is also off it.
Benavidez is more of a volume puncher who throws a lot of slapping arm shots. All 24 of The Mexican Monster’s knockouts came when he fought below his natural weight class at 168, and had a massive size advantage over his opponents.
When he moved up to 175 in his last fight after 11 years as a pro, his power was not the same, and he was never a threat to knock out his opponent Oleksandr Gvozdyk on June 15 of last year.
“I have no evidence of that because it’s not like Morrell was knocked down or knocked out or badly injured. I just get the feeling that in a shootout, the guy who’s going to be able to do a little bit better is going to be Benavidez. But we will see. That’s why it’s a 50-50 type of fight,” said Rafael.
