David Benavidez says he doesn’t know if he’ll stay at cruiserweight to fight IBF champion Jai Opetaia if he defeats WBA and WBO champion Gilberto Zurdo Ramirez next year.
Benavidez (31-0, 25 KOs) states that he takes one fight at a time, and his immediate focus is to challenge Ramirez (48-1, 30 KOs) for his two cruiserweight belts on May 2, 2026. He says he wants to return to 175 after he faces Ramirez to fight these three:
- Dmitry Bivol
- Artur Beterbiev
- Canelo Alvarez
“I take every fight as an opportunity. Maybe after I get the [WBA and WBO] titles at cruiserweight, there’s an opportunity to come down,” said David Benavidez to Ring Magazine when asked if he’ll return to 175 after he moved up to cruiserweight to challenge Gilberto Ramirez for his two belts on May 2, 2026.
Beterbiev would be the easiest of the three for Benavidez to face, because he’s already expressed interest in fighting him. However, if Beterbiev loses his yet-to-be-scheduled trilogy match with Bivol, it would be pointless for Benavidez to face him.
“I feel like I’m not going to gain too much muscle going up, and I don’t want to get big. I don’t want to stay at cruiserweight immediately. I want to come back down,” said Benavidez.
So, we’re going to put together a good game plan. We’ve got six months to get ready for that fight [Ramirez].
It may be harder than Benavidez thinks to come back down from cruiserweight to light heavyweight. He would be taking off 25 lbs from 200 to 175 lbs. That’s not easy for anyone, especially for a fighter who already looked drained at cutting weight for his clash against Anthony Yarde on November 22nd.
“We’re going to see how much muscle mass we have to put on, and what kind of strength and conditioning we have to do. But I definitely do want to come down [to 175] and get a fight with Bivol, Beterbiev, and Canelo, hopefully in the future. I don’t know. We’ll take one fight at a time, brother. Everything is possible. I’m not ducking no smoke,” said Benavidez when asked if he’ll stay at cruiserweight to fight IBF champion Jai Opetaia.