Speaking with the gathered media ahead of his March clash with Caleb Plant, unbeaten super middleweight warrior David Benavidez spoke about his plans to make the move up to the light heavyweight division after four more fights. As filmed by Fight Hub TV, Benavidez had plenty of interesting things to say – not least his claim that he would defeat, by KO, Dmitry Bivol if the fight took place.
“I feel like I have four fights left at super middleweight. The only reason I stayed for so long was because I wanted to make this fight (with Plant) happen for sure,” Benavidez said.
“And since I’m already there, I may as well try and make these other big fights happen….we’ve got Canelo, we got Morell, Charlo, maybe Andrade. And then, after that, I’m going to 175. Or if I can’t get any of those fights made, I’m going up to 175. I feel like I could have a lot of success with [Artur Beterbiev] – he does leave himself open. I would love to fight him in the future. He leaves his body open a lot.
“It would definitely be an extremely tough task. I would want to go up to 175 first, to see how it is before I go to the main guy, but I think 175, I’ll be stronger and faster. I’ve sparred Bivol a lot, so I know what happens in those sparring sessions, so yeah, I can beat him. I can knock him out.”
Benavidez, 26-0(23) has a potentially tough task ahead of him with the Plant fight, this before he can even think, or should be thinking, about moving up to 175. That said, it’s easy to like Benavidez and his uppermost confidence levels. A big 168 pounder, it could be that Benavidez will be stronger and faster with seven additional pounds added to his frame. But again, let’s get that Plant fight done first.
Like the rest of us, Benavidez wants to see Beterbiev and Bivol fight. Who knows, maybe one day in the not too distant future Benavidez will be fighting the winner.