Cuban David Morrell will bring plenty of power and technical skills to his fight against former WBC super middleweight champion David Benavidez on January 25 in Las Vegas.
Benavidez will be facing by far the biggest puncher of his career and a guy with more experience due to his years in the amateurs in his native Cuba.
The ‘Mexican Monster’ Benavidez’s last fight against Oleksandr Gvozdyk on June 15 showed that it is not a good idea for Morrell to let the fight go to the scorecards against him. That fight looked like a draw or a close win for Benavidez, but he got a wide 12-round decision.
Unless Morrell wants similar treatment, he needs to knock out Benavidez on January 25th. Fortunately for Morrell, he has massive punching power and can take the judges out of the picture.
Morrell (11-0, 9 KOs) has the kind of power that Benavidez (29-0, 24 KOs) has never faced before in his 11-year pro career, and he may not be able to stand under that kind shots from the Cuban.
We saw in Benavidez’s debut at 175 against Oleksandr Gvozdyk that his stamina is that of a six-round fighter, and his power could not carry up the 168-lb weight class. Benavidez was never a big puncher. The reasons why he was successful are because of these factors:
- Weak opposition
- High punch output
- Size advantage
Morrell has called out Benavidez over the past few years but has been ignored by him. Benavidez chose to face old veterans for obvious reasons. It is believed that the only reason Benavidez finally accepted a fight against David Morrell is his less-than-impressive performance against Radivoje “Hot Rod” Kalajdzic on August 3rd.
While the 26-year-old Morrell dominated former light heavyweight world title challenger Kalajdzic (29-3, 21 KOs) and hurt him numerous times, he was unable to land the knockout and looked vulnerable.
The scores were 117-111, 117-111 and 118-110 in favor of Morrell. That fight showed that Morrell needs to throw more punches when stunning his opponents, as he hurt Kalajdzic four times in the bout, but took him off the hook by not stringing together his punches to finish the job.
Benavidez’s last four opponents
– Oleksandr Gvozdyk
– Demetrius Andrade
– Caleb Plant
– David Lemieux
Last updated on 10/09/2024
