Regis Prograis says David Benavidez isn’t ready to fight Canelo Alvarez yet after watching his last performance against Caleb Plant last month.
Prograis feels that Canelo (58-2-2, 39 KOs) is still a level above Benavidez (27-0, 23 KOs), and he thinks there needs more time to go by before he’s ready.
Unfortunately for Benavidez, the odds of him getting a fight against Canelo will be slim as the Mexican star gets older and continues to look poor like we’ve seen from him in his last two fights against Gennadiy Golovkin and Dmitry Bivol.
Benavidez beat Plant (22-2, 13 KOs) by a twelve-round unanimous decision with the scores 115-113, 116-112, and 117-111. It’s fair to say that Benavidez would have scored a knockout by the eighth or ninth round if Plant hadn’t done so much holding to survive.
The referee didn’t do anything about Plant’s excessive holding, which is why he could go the distance. When Plant fought Canelo, he wasn’t holding all night and was moving a lot. However, against Benavidez, Plant looked like his intent was to make it to the final bell by clinching, and he accomplished that.
“I thought it was an excellent performance. I felt it was going to go like that,” said Regis Prograis to Fight Hub TV when asked about his thoughts on David Benavidez’s win over Caleb Plant last month on March 25th.
“At first, Plant was doing real good, out-boxing him, but he just didn’t have the power to keep him off. That’s all. Benavidez is just too big, too strong right now. I think he’s going to be trouble for a lot of people.
“I know the next question might be the Canelo thing, but I don’t think he’s on that level yet as far as Canelo-wise because Plant couldn’t keep him off. Plant just couldn’t keep him off because h didn’t have the power.
“For someone like Canelo, he has the power to probably keep him off. I don’t think he’ll beat Canelo right now,” said Prograis about Benavidez.
“I think you go fight by fight basis, but right now after that performance [by Benavidez], just not yet. I would want to see him in his next performance against whoever he fights next, and then I want to see him perform and then maybe after that.
“I just think not yet [for Benavidez]. He’s close to being on that level with Canelo. For me, Canelo is just a step above.
“I saw it on TV, but I heard it was brutal,” Prograis said about the punishment that Benavidez dished out against Plant. “They said that live, it was brutal. That’s why we pay for this. That’s a warrior.
“Caleb Plant, I take my hat off to this dude. He’s a warrior. Going in there and taking that stuff like that, that’s a warrior. I want to see him back in some more big fights,” said Prograis.
“You can’t count Canelo out. Canelo is a beast. I don’t think he’s getting older. People are saying he’s getting older. I don’t see that,” said Prograis. “He went up to fight Bivol [last May].
“He went up to a whole different weight class to fight Bivol. That doesn’t mean that you just done. He gave a good fight, but they make weight classes for a reason.
“I think he will go adjust, and he will get better from the loss. Look at the whole Floyd Mayweather thing. He got better from that. So, I think he’s going to go back. You can’t count out Canelo. Canelo is one of the greatest that ever did it.
“I think he’s going to go adjust. Will he beat Bivol? I don’t know. I can’t say that yet, but I think he’s going to adjust and it’ll be a different fight,” said Prograis.
