David Benavidez says he would be open to a fight against WBA light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol if it were offered to him.
Benavidez realizes that Bivol likely won’t give him a title shot because he’s going to be waiting for Canelo to exercise his rematch clause to try and avenge his recent loss.
The unbeaten Benavidez (25-0, 22 KOs) insists he would have done a better job against Bivol than Canelo Alvarez, who looked entirely befuddled in his one-sided 12-round decision loss on May 7th.
What surprised Benavidez was how Canelo failed to make adjustments during the fight with Bivol.
Instead of trying to use his vast experience to box Bivol, Canelo loaded up on power shots, trying to knock out the champion in the same way he’d done in his recent fights leading up to that contest.
“Definitely, I had a lot of success when I was sparring Bivol. We had a lot of sparring sessions. I know for a fact that I could have done better than Canelo,” said David Benavidez to Fight Hub TV when asked if he thinks he could have done better against Dmitry Bivol than Canelo Alvarez did in their fight on May 7th.
Given how poor Canelo looked against Bivol, it wouldn’t be hard for Benavidez to do a better job.
Canelo looked like a basic slugger, a fighter throwing one big shot at a time, expecting Bivol to fall over like the belt holders he’d been consistently fighting for the last four years.
The Mexican star failed to throw combinations, and he looked like he’d trained for a four-round fight rather than a 12-rounder.
“What Canelo did was he kept trying to break him down and hit him with power punches,” said Benavidez when asked why Canelo didn’t make adjustments in his fight with Bivol.
“By the time he figured out he had to do something new, he was already gassed,” Benavidez said about Canelo. “That’s the thing about him.
“He thinks he can knock everybody out and hit everybody on their arm, and their arm is going to fall off. That doesn’t happen with everybody. It might happen with one or two guys, but it doesn’t happen with everybody else.
“Bivol taught us a lot too. He exposed Canelo a little bit more than people thought he could be exposed. It was a good fight. I’m very happy for Bivol. He did exactly what he had to do, and he shocked the whole world,” said Benavidez.
The former two-time WBC 168-lb champion Benavidez is fighting this Saturday night against David Lemieux for the interim WBC super-middleweight title on Showtime at the Gila River Arena in Glendale, Arizona.
If Benavidez captures the interim WBC title, he’ll be able to put more pressure on Canelo to defend his 168-lb title against him. If Canelo loses his rematch with Bivol, it’ll be interesting to see what direction he goes with his career.
