David Benavidez and David Morrell will fight on the 1st of February as the WBC Interim and WBA ‘Regular’ light heavyweight title holders meet in Las Vegas.
Benavidez, 28, will be looking to make his professional record 30-0, while Morrell will look to maintain his undefeated status in his 12th fight.
Moving to the light heavyweight division in his last bout, ‘The Monster Bandera Roja’, Benavidez defeated Oleksandr Gvozdyk by unanimous decision to claim his interim title.
Morrell’s last performance would also be a unanimous decisoon victory, as he got the better of 29-2 Radiovoje Kalajdzic.
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David Benavidez and David Morrell share intense online face-off
Both Benavidez and Morrell were guests on The Ariel Helwani Show on January 14th. Appearing on the show at the same time, the two engaged in an online face to face.
The face-off was an intense one, as Benavidez and Morrell previosly shared a phyiscal altercation.
As soon as the pair were connected, it became clear that the two did not have a positive opinion on one another head of the bout.
Benavidez started out by saying, “look at him, he’s scared. He ain’t got s*** to say.” This was then followed by a verbal fist fight between the pair as the fighters spoke over one another.
“I’m going to beat the s*** out of you,” was repeated by Benavidez as Morrell was firing off insults of his own.
“You are so predictable, you are so simple, you are nothing man,” Morrell told Benavidez.
A claim was then made by Benavidez that Morrell’s coaches would be making more money than him as a result of their fight, however, the Cuban shut down these allegations saying they were untrue.
Ariel Helwani then asked Benavidez if he felt that his opponent was using performance enhancing drugs ahead of the bout, to which the fighter said he didn’t. When asked about the same subject, Morrell responded, “I’m clean.”
When asked about why emotions seemed to be so high for Benavidez, the 28-year-old repsonded, “It has to be personal because its the biggest fight of both of our lives… This is what the people want to see. They want to see two people going at it that don’t like each other.”
When Morrell was asked if he felt the fight was personal between the two, he repsonded, “Hell no, it’s easy.”
David Benavidez is not looking past David Morrell
February 22nd will see one of the biggest cards in boxing history take place in Saudi Arabia. Headlined by Dmitry Bivol vs Artur Beterbiev, February will see potentially the four biggest names in the light heavyweight division compete across two fights.
However, despite the unfication bout between Bivol and Beterbiev holding much relevance to all fighters in the divison, Benavidez is not looking past Morrell.
When asked by Helwani if the winner of their bout would fight the winner of the unfication bout, Benavidez responded, “You know what, I’m not thinking of [that fight] now. I’m thinking David Morrell, February 1st.”
Benavidez gave his predicition for Beterbiev vs Bivol, but remains soley focused on his schedueld opponent.