David Benavidez and former two-division world champion Demetrius Andrade have a fight in the works for November or December.
It’ll be interesting to see if this fight actually happens because both guys have recently avoided taking risky fights, and either of them could choose to drag their fight in negotiations to make sure this match doesn’t take place.
Andrade finally gets a good fight after turning down Zach Parker and Janibek Alimkhanuly.
Those were bad career moves on Andrade’s part to turn down those fights because it showed that he was hypocritical, as he had been complaining about how Canelo Alvarez avoided him and other top guys.
Then he’s offered tough opposition, turns them down, and chooses to play it safe.
Benavidez (27-0, 23 KOs) will defend his WBC interim super middleweight title against the unbeaten Andrade (32-0, 19 KOs), with the winner to be mandatory to champion Canelo Alvarez.
“Sources close to the operation tell me that David Benavidez will go against Demetrius Andrade in one of the last months of this year.
Jaime Munguía’s handlers have chosen not to fight Benavidez,” said JuliusJulianis.
Benavidez recently beat former IBF super middleweight champion Caleb Plant in a grueling contest last March. Plant dominated the first half but then ran out of gas and got worked over in the last six rounds.
This fight is happening because Benavidez choose not to take the risky match against WBA ‘regular’ super middleweight champion David Morrell Jr., who made him look avoidant & scared by not agreeing to face him after he called him out.
Morrell exposed a side of Benavidez that we hadn’t seen, showing that he’s not willing to take a risk in a 50-50 fight.
Another reason why the Benavidez-Andrade fight is being made is that Jaime Munguia chose not to fight Benavidez, which isn’t all that surprising.
Although he showed interest in facing Benavidez after his narrow win over Sergiy Derevyanchenko last June, the closeness of that fight likely made him and his management put the brakes on facing the Mexican Monster.
The World Boxing Council has chosen not to order Canelo to defend against Benavidez this year, so perhaps in 2024, they could be ready to order the contest.
Whether Canelo will be the champion by that point is unknown. If he loses to Jermell Charlo next month on September 30th, the problem of fighting the Benavidez-Andrade winner will be his. He’ll have inherited Canelo’s problem that he’s avoided for ages.