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 face the biggest puncher of his career by far and a man with more experience due to his years in the amateurs in his native Cuba.
“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. This fight looked like a draw or a close win for Benavidez, but he was given a wide 12-round decision.
Unless Morrell wants similar treatment, he must 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 during his 11-year pro career, and he can’t keep under these types of shots from the Cuban. .
We saw in Benavidez’s debut at 175 against Oleksandr Gvozdyk that his stamina is that of a six-round fight, and his power did not carry over from the 168-lb weight class. Benavidez has never been a great puncher. The reasons for its success are due to these factors:
- Weak opposition
- High output punch
- Size advantage
Morrell had called Benavidez for the past two years, but had been ignored by him. Benavidez preferred 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 world light heavyweight title challenger Kalajdzic (29-3, 21 KOs), hurting him on several occasions, he failed to land a knockout and looked vulnerable.
The scores were 117-111, 117-111 and 118-110 in favor of Morrell. This fight showed that Morrell needs to throw more punches when he stuns his opponents because he had Kalajdzic hurt four times in the contest, but he let him off the hook by not putting his punches together to finish the job.
Benavidez’s last four opponents
– Oleksandr Gvozdyk
– Demetrius Andrade
– Caleb Plant
– David Lemieux
Last updated on 10/09/2024
