Rarely would questions about age be asked of a 27-year-old fighter who was seemingly in his prime. However, in Boxing, age is a much more complicated formula than simply the number by itself. Factors such as mileage, physiology, mental strength, competitive spirit, career team, ego, defensive skills, training habits, lifestyle and even finances can play a large role in a fighter’s shelf life.
First, let’s look at the positive factors in favor of the Phoenix, AZ native. Benavidez had a very short amateur career, going undefeated in 15 fights before turning pro at age 16. In his 11 years as a pro, he took very little punishment due to cautious matchups against mostly undersized and always inexperienced opponents. His head is also large, and his features show evidence of a thick skull.
Many big-headed fighters have enjoyed long careers taking punishment with very little effect in the ring or later in life. Mike Tyson and Julio Cesar Chavez are prime examples of this. David also showed great training discipline while in the gym, often shedding tens of pounds in the final weeks of camp. Considering a limited level of competition, David still showed a fighting spirit in the ring.
The Weight Game
Unfortunately, Benavidez has several negatives that could point to a shortened career that looks like it’s just getting started for casual level fans. For starters, David has a weight problem. At just over 6’0 tall, David is known to weigh as much as 250 pounds. At 16 years old, not even fully developed, he fought as a professional Cruiserweight (200).
David has so far been able to turn this negative into a temporary positive by using extreme training and diet measures to push down to the Super Middleweight (168) division for the weigh-in, then rehydrate back to Cruiserweight in time for the ring go. This short-sighted method of gaining an advantage carries a huge deficit on the back end. Not only is this one of the most career-shortening techniques used by predator fighters in recent times, but it is also the most dangerous for both fighters in the ring.
For casual fans who do not understand Boxing and see it as a chess move within the rules of the sport, there is a failure to realize that it is nothing less than an exploitation of a rule put in place to probability of ring tragedies. Weigh-ins were held once on the day of the fight, preventing fighters struggling to make weight from properly rehydrating before taking blows to the head later that night.
This creates an extremely dangerous situation where the protective cerebrospinal fluids around the brain and spinal cord are depleted due to extreme dehydration. This is the reason that most Boxing tragedies occur outside of the Heavyweight division, where there is no need to dehydrate yourself to reach a contracted weight limit.
To undermine this potentially deadly danger, weigh-ins were moved to the previous day, sometimes even two days earlier, to protect not only the fighters, but the sport itself, long scrutinized for its barbarism and tragic history. David is not the first, though certainly one of the more extreme cases, of fighters who have turned this safety measure into an opportunity to exploit their opponents and create an entirely new dangerous situation where one fighter has a twenty to thirty pounds of size enjoyed over their opponent inside the ring.
One only has to look at Devin Haney, the most extreme safety measure exploiter in modern boxing, to see how quickly your career can be completely derailed once your body has had too much of this predatory practice and you are forced into a facing opponent of almost equal size.
The Canelo situation
Benavidez has already shown several signs that his body can no longer take the abuse of these extreme weight swings. David made a name for himself just by attaching himself to the career of Canelo Alvarez. So effective was this marketing gimmick that you rarely hear one name mentioned without the other name following shortly after.
Oddly, many casual level fans and pundits pushing the agenda didn’t realize that David Benavidez had already had three opportunities to face Canelo Alvarez, having blown all three either foolishly or, as most believe, on purpose.
In July 2018, while on the promotional tour for his rematch against Gennady Golovkin, Canelo Alvarez stated his intention to move to the Super Middleweight division (168) should he defeat Golovkin. Canelo, a Mexican national where the WBC belt is held in the highest regard of all titles, would first seek the WBC belt held by David Benavidez.
Less than a month later, on August 27, 2018, VADA collected a scheduled urine sample from Benavidez. On September 18, 2018, the day before Canelo vs Golovkin, Benavidez’s urinalysis in August showed a positive hit for cocaine. David was stripped of the title and suspended, robbing Canelo of the opportunity to compete for the coveted WBC Super Middleweight title (168).
Rather than fight for the newly vacated belt, which the WBC practically threw at him due to his high earnings translating into exorbitant sanction fees, Canelo instead challenged WBA champion Rocky Fielding while the beltless Benavidez served his suspension . Rather than collecting the WBC belt in distasteful fashion, Canelo in turn collected more belts at 160 and even 175, while allowing Benavidez to get his career back on track, eventually winning the WBC 168- title regained one year later in September 2019.
The stage was once again set for Canelo vs Benavidez for the WBC, WBA Regular, and Ring Super Middleweight (168) Championship of the World on Cinco De Mayo weekend in 2021. David would take a draft fight in August 2020 to prepare for his career-defining shot at immortality and Canelo would challenge 6’3 undefeated World Champion Callum Smith in December 2020 to prepare himself for the size of Benavidez. However, with his supposed dream fight on the table, David inexplicably tipped the scales at over 170 pounds for the weigh-in of his defense against Angulo and was immediately stripped of the WBC title.
Canelo, who has now given Benavidez two opportunities while waiting for two years, was forced to move on with career and the WBC belt was rightfully added to the pot in the fight for the Linear Super Middleweight Championship against the undefeated World Champion Callum Smith.
For the next three years, Benavidez would chase Canelo and the media for a shot at Alvarez’s now undisputed Super Middleweight (168) Championship. Canelo, finding it increasingly difficult to take Benavidez seriously due to his forfeiture of two previous opportunities to make the fight, refused to entertain the bout due to the unreliability of Benavidez as a professional and questionable prowess. However, the WBC publicly announced in early 2024 that they would force a mandatory defense of Canelo’s WBC Championship against David Benavidez.
Rather than vacate, Canelo accepted the decision and empowered his team to send an offer to Benavidez. David accepted the offer, and once again the fight was on. However, before detailed negotiations could begin, David shockingly announced that he would be leaving the 168-pound division and challenging Oleksandr Gvozdyk for the WBC Light Heavyweight (175) interim replica belt.
This move shocked the Boxing Community, Boxing Pundits, The WBC, Team Canelo, and left jaws dropping across the sport and beyond. For months afterward, Benavidez scrambled and attempted to return to Canelo at Super Middleweight (168), changing his mind almost daily until serious interest in the bout waned and the bout became impossible from a promotional standpoint.
David Benavidez intentionally forfeited three opportunities to face Canelo after building his entire career to be the final challenge of Canelo’s Hall of Fame career, which can only mean one of two things. David either never intended to face Canelo and just wanted to ride the coat tails of the universally recognized Face of Boxing, or he is simply no longer capable of making the 168-pound weigh-in and remaining competitive .
Did the mileage, parties and weight loss prematurely take their toll on David’s body and psyche? Training videos showed David weighing somewhere between 210 and 230 pounds, essentially turning his training camps into fat camps where the focus is on losing weight rather than gaining strength, technique and skill.
The Last Stand
Benavidez will now face David Morrell, a big, young, strong and talented yet inexperienced 11-fight prospect at Light Heavyweight (175). Morrell is known for collecting third place replicas of belts held by the Undisputed Champions of the Super Middleweight (168) and Light Heavyweight (175) divisions.
Benavidez, not a big puncher at Super Middleweight (168), carries below-average strength and power at Light Heavyweight (175). In fact, one could argue that he has only fought two fighters of equal size in his professional career. The first was 6’2 Ronald Gavril.
Most pundits agree that Benavidez was soundly beaten in their first encounter, with one judge scoring the fight for Gavril with a dominant score of 116-111 and giving a huge gift by technically maintaining his undefeated record. To his credit, David righted this wrong by immediately rematching Gavril and legitimately winning the fight, albeit unspectacularly.
The second is his most recent opponent, Gvozdyk. David did deserve the decision but looked soft, slow and weak compared to his earlier performances against heavily disadvantaged opponents. Unfortunately for Benavidez, his career has reached a point of impasse in almost every direction. He clearly can no longer compete against smaller fighters without forfeiting the advantages he once had opposing smaller fighters, yet he does not carry the strength and power to compete against the top level at Light Heavyweight (175) thing not
Should he be successful against Morrell, which is far from a guarantee, undisputed champion Artur Beterbiev will likely break and dispose of Benavidez in 3 or 4 rounds. He could potentially injure himself permanently. Once beaten Dmitri Bivol will likely be worse for David, as Bivol is a punishing fighter who lacks one-punch KO power, but is a strong, high-volume puncher who can dangerously extend a vicious beating on ‘ a physically compromised fighter like David Benavidez.
David really has only one path left to ensure financial security for the rest of his life: boxing immortality. That path, on top of defeating David Morrell, requires Canelo Alvarez to challenge and defeat Artur Beterbiev, then trust Benavidez’s ability and professionalism by offering him a fourth opportunity to fight, Benavidez accepts the fight, then boxes out for Canelo and immediately retire as the Undisputed Light Heavyweight Champion of the World.
It’s not a very likely scenario given the ambiguity of all these scenarios and their respective outcomes, but it’s clearly the path David is banking on in his quest to collect replicas of Beterbiev’s belts and the accompanying mandatory challenger positions while at the same time rejecting multiple. offer to actually face Artur Beterbiev in the ring.
Any scenario other than that would absolutely result in David Benavidez’s first loss occurring in 2025, accompanied by the inevitable downward spiral that history has proven to follow time and time again with countless boxing talents that have come and gone in the blink of an eye. annals of the Loneliest sport.
