LAS VEGAS — David Benavidez delivered a message to David Morrell Jr.’s assistant trainer face-to-face this week.
“The Mexican Monster” wasn’t nearly as angry when he spoke to Bob Santos as Benavidez was when he berated Morrell and his co-promoter, Luis DeCubas Sr., during their final press conference Thursday at MGM Grand. Benavidez wasn’t angry at Santos at all, actually.
“The funny thing is,” Santos told Uncrowned, “Benavidez told me, ‘You f***er, I knew sooner or later we were gonna cross paths.’ He said it in a loving way.”
Benavidez (29-0, 24 KOs) knew he would cross paths with Santos because the respected trainer has worked Morrell’s corner alongside head trainer Ronnie Shields since Morrell’s fourth professional fight. Santos previously prepared Benavidez in the gym early in his career, when Santos helped the current WBC interim light heavyweight champion’s father and head coach, Jose Sr., prepare his son for super middleweight title fights.
Morrell, a Cuban southpaw, will compete in just his 12th pro bout when he battles Benavidez on Saturday night at T-Mobile Arena. His inexperience notwithstanding, Morrell is widely viewed as the most complete opponent of Benavidez’s 11-year pro career.
The 28-year-old Benavidez believes he is on the cusp of superstardom, with or without Canelo Alvarez, the Mexican icon he has stopped calling out since the Phoenix native moved up from the super middleweight limit of 168 pounds to the 175-pound division. Benavidez and Morrell (11-0, 9 KOs) have set their sights on the winner of the immediate rematch between fully unified light heavyweight champ Artur Beterbiev (21-0, 20 KOs) and former WBA champ Dmitry Bivol (23-1, 12 KOs) on Feb. 22 at Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Unless their Premier Boxing Champions pay-per-view main event results in a draw or no-contest, Benavidez or Morrell will become the WBC’s mandatory challenger for one of the belts owned by Beterbiev or Bivol.
“I love both guys [Benavidez and Morrell],” said Santos, who also trains WBC welterweight champ Mario Barrios, heavyweight prospect Lenier Pero, junior middleweight contender Brian Mendoza and featherweight contender Luis Nunez. “At the end of the day, I always look at boxing as a sport. It’s competitiveness and may the best man win. So, [Benavidez is] gonna do what he’s gotta do, and we gotta do what we gotta do, and it’s about who’s the best. I know a lotta people say, ‘Oh, it’s just two guys beating each other’s brains out.’ At the highest level, it’s not that. If you think that’s what it is, yeah, maybe you’ll get there for a time, maybe you’ll win a title. But you won’t sustain that.
“Floyd Mayweather proved that. You have to have talent, you have to have ability. And if you’re gonna sustain it at the highest level, it’s like a chess match. I look at the sport of boxing like chess. And when you really are at that level, when you’re around the best, then you recognize that. It’s adjustments in the corner. There’s a lot going on there. If you don’t see that, then you don’t understand the sport. And the guys that can’t get that, won’t do that, they won’t sustain.”
Benavidez and Morrell completely understand what’s at stake in a fight most champions and top contenders wouldn’t have embraced if they were in their positions. Morrell mirrored Benavidez’s approach to Alvarez by constantly calling out the rugged Benavidez.
Morrell had only eight fights when he intensified his pursuit of Benavidez two years ago. His talent defies his professional experience, but Benavidez and his team didn’t start seriously considering Morrell as an option for a pay-per-view main event until he became at least a little more known even among hardcore boxing fans.
What they now know is that Morrell is big, strong, athletic and can crack with both hands, particularly with his left uppercut and right hook. The Miami resident is much more athletic than the aggressive, durable, relentless Benavidez.
Santos considers Kazakhstan’s Aidos Yerbossynuly, the opponent whom Morrell brutally defeated November 2022 and was put in a medically induced coma in the aftermath of the bout, the most troublesome opponent among the 11 Morrell has beaten since his debut in August 2019. There are worlds of difference, of course, between Benavidez and Yerbossynuly.
“Benavidez has certain abilities,” Santos said. “He has fast hands, he has length, he’s usually the bigger guy. But, and you don’t need a genius to point this out, he doesn’t have the greatest feet. They’re not bad, but they’re not great. And Morrell has mobility. Now it’s gonna come down to who’s gonna execute. Who can force whose style upon who?
“Morrell has many more options to do different things. But guess what? You’re in the biggest fight of your life – how do you handle the pressure? Does it tense you up? If it doesn’t, if you stick to what you can do, get him out of his rhythm, which he can do, give him different looks, which he can do, then it’s his path to victory. If he fights Benavidez’s fight, and this is no secret, [Benavidez is] gonna be victorious. And that’s how I see the fight.”
BetMGM sees Benavidez as a -275 favorite. Santos sees the 27-year-old Morrell as big enough, smart enough, strong enough and talented enough to pull off the upset.
Many of the opponents Benavidez beat were too small, too old or too something to knock him off course.
Ronald Gavril gave Benavidez a little trouble in their first fight, even dropped him in the 12th round, before Benavidez came back to win a split decision in September 2017 at the nearby Hard Rock Hotel & Casino (now Virgin Hotels Las Vegas). Benavidez beat Gavril more convincingly, by unanimous decision, in their 12-round rematch five months later at Mandalay Bay Events Center.
“Obviously he stopped [Anthony] Dirrell in the eighth or ninth round,” Santos said. “But there were spots in that fight when Dirrell gave him a little bit of problems. Caleb Plant did a good job in spots, until, you know, the wheels came off towards the end. But he’s pretty much had his way with everybody.
“The first fight with Gavril — and Gavril has trained in my gym, I know him very well — he dropped [Benavidez] in that first fight. That was a tough fight for him, but again, he was 21 years old. To fight a guy at that level, at that time, that’s the caveat. But those fights come to mind. [David] Lemieux was too small. With a lot of those guys, he’s been beyond the bigger guy. That’s not gonna be the case in this fight.”
No matter which fighter wins, Santos hopes Benavidez and Morrell get credit for taking risks many contemporaries avoid until they maneuver their way into the biggest paydays, while oftentimes minimizing real risk at the expense of paying customers who want to see the best fight the best sooner rather than later. Beterbiev and Bivol are the Nos. 1 and 2 fighters in the light heavyweight division, but Benavidez is definitely in the top three and Morrell might be in the top five.
“Nobody’s doing what they’ve done,” Santos said. “That’s why we didn’t get the Terence Crawford-Errol Spence fight back in the day. That’s why we haven’t gotten the Tank [Davis]-Shakur Stevenson fight, because ultimately, no one is doing what these guys are doing. This is high, high risk – high risk. And it’s not even the reward of the Canelo fight, but it puts you in contention for the winner of the Beterbiev-Bivol rematch, for sure.”
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