Yarde promises to put Benavidez to “sleep” in the Riyadh war

Anthony Yarde says his power will put WBC light heavyweight champion David Benavidez down “to sleep” if he lands clean in their head-to-head clash on November 22, 2025 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Yarde (27-3, 24 KOs) is confident he can beat ‘The Mexican Monster’ Benavidez (30-0, 24 KOs) because his way of fighting is to go to war with his opponents. This has been his trademark approach to fighting since day one of his 12-year professional career.

Benavidez is banking on his ability to knock Yarde out, wear him down and score a knockout at one point. What happens if Yarde lands first? With Yarde’s power, if he ends up drawing early in the fight, fans will find out if Benavidez has the chops for the 175-lb division.

It’s not a good sign that Benvidez has been hurt in his two fights since moving up to light heavyweight in 2024. David Morrell knocked him out in the second round, hurt him in the fourth and dropped him in the eleventh fight on February 1, 2025.

Former WBC light heavyweight champion Oleksandr Gvozdyk knocked the air out of Benavidez in the 11th round after nailing him with a right body shot in their June 15, 2024 fight.

A war waiting to ignite

“It’s inevitable. At some point we’re going to have a shootout. That’s what I want and that’s what he wants,” Anthony Yarde said. Queensberry about how his fight with David Benavidez on November 22 will play out. “I feel like that’s our fighting style. That’s what makes it an exciting fight.”

It’s going to be an instant “shootout” in the Benavidez vs. Yarde battle in the first round. That’s how Benavidez fights. He’s not going to wait until the middle rounds or later in the fight to go on the attack against Yarde because he’s a volume puncher who wins his fights by outworking his opponents.

The question is, can Anthony Yarde handle Benavidez’s pace for twelve rounds? We’ve seen Yarde’s gas tank run out in the past in knockout losses to Artur Beterbiev and Sergey Kovalev when they set a fast pace. With Beavidez’s high-pressure style, it’s a given that Yarde will wear down quickly if he can’t knock him out or make him think twice about using that approach.

Benavidez’s chin questioned

“I’ve got my artillery. I’ve got my jacket and my Iron Man gear. We’re getting to the center of the ring. Hopefully there’s no strays. The referee’s got to be careful. And you’ll have a good fight,” says Yarde. “If I hit Benavide and it’s clean, he goes to sleep,” Yarde says.

Benavidez, 28, will insist on making it an immediate war against Yarde, believing he can snowball him with shots. We don’t know if his chin is still intact after what the Cuban Morrell did to him last February. Again he was hurt twice by Morrell and fell in the 11th round. Not a good way to go into the fight against a big puncher like Morrell.

Benavidez’s 175 experiment

Is Benavidez’s power as real at light heavyweight as it was at 168? The fights he’s had since moving up to 175 against Gvozdyk and Morrell suggest his strength hasn’t picked up from 168. Both of Benavidez’s fights went the 12-round distance.

Is Yarde Overlooked—Could It Be 65/35 His Way? He is clearly overlooked, seen as the token victim for Benavidez to use in a showcase fight. People look at Yarde and don’t see him as a credible threat. This is why there has been less buzz about this fight compared to the co-feature bout between Devin Haney vs. Brian Norman Jr. for The Ring IV card on November 22.