David Benavidez, the current WBC interim super middleweight champion, is in the final stages of his preparation to face WBA (regular) super middleweight champion David Morrell in Las Vegas, in a main event scheduled for Saturday, February 1 at the T-Mobile Arena
This is a pivotal fight in the immediate future of the division, as the winner will presumably be the challenger for the undisputed title fight between Russians Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol in a highly anticipated rematch
Curiously, before competing at 175 pounds, both fighters were in the super middleweight division, where even boxers were in the super middleweight division and even ‘Red Flag’ Benavidez became champion of the division for the WBC.
However, it seems that everything was bad for the Mexican-born fighter in the 168 pounds as even being champion of the division he could never face Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez in search of a unification fight even being named mandatory challenger by the WBC itself and had to move up in division, but was also stripped of his title. But what happened?
In fact, Benavidez lost his belt through his own fault.
David Benavidez’s unfortunate time at 168 pounds
Benavidez had initially won the belt in 2017 with a close victory over Ronald Gavril, successfully defending it in a rematch before losing it. In September 2018, David Benavidez found himself at a crossroads, after he tested positive in a random drug test administered by VADA as part of the WBC’s Clean Boxing Initiative, which subjects its champions to random drug testing and Benavidez was left out in the cold
This caused the fighter to be stripped and he also received a six-month suspension, until February 2018, when he returned to face J’Leon Love. But that was not all, as he regained the title by defeating Anthony Dirrell and again lost it, again by mistake
This happened because of a problem with the scale before his fight against Roamer Alexis Angulo. Benavidez was 2.8 pounds over the limit and although the fight went ahead, Benavidez lost the right to retain the belt and lost it at the table, even though he won the fight
The title was vacated because Benavidez won that opportunity, but was stripped for the second time in his career and had to admit that despite trying to get rid of the extra weight in the days leading up to the weigh-in, his body simply shut down and he made the decision not to push anymore.
In 2020, Canelo Alvarez defeated Callum Smith to win the WBC belt and still holds it to this day, while Benavidez decided to stop forcing his body to make the super middleweight limit and eventually decided to move up in weight after Canelo systematically refused to face him.