David Benavidez remains undefeated and has been nicknamed ‘The Mexican Monster’ after his impressive wins over boxing greats, but his career didn’t begin so well.
David Benavidez is coming off his second win in the light-heavyweight division after outpointing David Morrell, and will be looking to fight a bigger name next be it Callum Smith or even Dmitry Bivol or Artur Beterbiev.
Benavidez has impressed fans with wins over Caleb Plant, Demetrius Andrade, and Oleksandr Gvozdyk. His career is especially impressive considering Benavidez had just 15 amateur fights before turning pro.
David Benavidez never fought for a title as he spent years shedding a whopping amount of weight
According to BoxRec, Benavidez won all 15 of his amateur bouts before turning pro, but never fought in any tournaments as a result of one aspect of his health.
Benavidez reportedly said: “I was really heavy when I was younger – about 250 pounds, when I was 13, so it took me two years to lose the weight. That’s another reason why I didn’t really fight in the amateurs.”
The Mexican fighter made his pro debut at 167.5 pounds, meaning he cut a whopping 82.5 pounds between the ages of 13 and 16, when he had his pro debut.
Benavidez, who went the distance with a journeyman early in his career, said that there was another reason that he didn’t box in the amateurs – he was built for the pro game:
“My dad always trained me a professional style […] once you go into the amateurs, you pick up a lot of bad habits. You’re not really throwing your punches all the way. You kind of slap; that’s how we felt, so my dad thought it would be a good idea to practice that pro style.”
David Benavidez has been dropped twice in his career
Benavidez, though ferocious, is not invincible, and has been visibly hurt multiple times.
In his first world title fight, which was also the second fight of his career to go the distance, Benavidez was dropped by 18-1 Ronald Gavril, getting away luckily with a split decision win over the durable Romanian.
The pair rematched in what was Benavidez’s opportunity to remove any doubt surrounding his nickname, but was unable to stop Gavril again, though won a more convincing unanimous decision this time.
Benavidez was also dropped by Morrell in round eleven of their fight.