David Benavidez spoke tough during his time at the podium in his first press conference, promising to break David Morrell’s mouth for questioning his courage in recent years. The two fighters reunited today to begin promoting their February 1st fight on PBC on Prime Video PPV in Las Vegas.
Morrell, 26, got on Benavidez’s nerves by knocking him down repeatedly for not stepping up to fight. Benavidez thought it was more important to fight other guys, like David Lemieux, Ronald Ellis, Demetrius Andrade and Caleb Plant.
The idea was for Benavidez to stay undefeated to get the mega-fight Canelo Alvarez. That fight never materialized, so Benavidez is ready to take on risky fights now against Morrell and the winner of the Artur Beterbiev vs. Dmitry Bivol 2 rematch if it gets that far.
Interestingly, Benavidez (29-0, 24 KOs) claimed he couldn’t understand what the Cuban-born Morrell (11-0, 9 KOs) was saying when he spoke Spanish to him. Benavidez speaks Spanish, but the accent is a little different than in Cuba, so he couldn’t understand Morrell.
Benavidez will challenge Morrell for his WBA “regular” lightweight title on a loaded card at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. The winner will be in a position to fight for the undisputed 175 lb championship against Artur Beterbiev or whoever holds the four belts from the second half of 2025.
“This guy disrespected me. I’m going to break his mouth so he has something to remember me by,” David Benavidez said during today’s kickoff press conference, ripping David Morrell for having criticized for the last two or three years because he refused to fight with him until recently. poor performance.
“He has been talking about me for about 2-3 years. He disrespects me, my father, my brother … so now you want to take the person with me. So, personally, I will break my mouth to have something to remember me”.
