Can Morrell’s body shots stop Benavidez?

Diego Pacheco believes regular WBA light heavyweight champion David Morrell will be David Benavidez’s “toughest opponent” when they meet on February 1 in the main event at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

Pacheco, a super middleweight contender who trains with Benavidez (29-0, 24 KOs), predicts he will wear down Morrell (11-0, 9 KOs) and emerge victorious. He compares Morrell to Caleb Plant, which is a strange comparison, and sees Benavidez starting slow but then moving forward.

The threat of a body blow

If Morrell hits Benavidez as much as Plant did, he will be in trouble in this fight. Morrell’s power is very different from Plant’s, and he will target his weak abdomen to shut him down.

Like all fighters, Benavidez has a weakness: taking body blows. Morrell will probably focus on his beefy Elvis’s last gut to score a stoppage with a body shot. That’s Benavidez’s kryptonite: hitting his barn hard.

“David Morrell is a guy you can’t take lightly. He is up there for a reason and he is one of the best Cubans of the moment,” Diego Pacheco told Sean Zitteltalking about David Morrell, who will face interim WBC light heavyweight champion David Benavidez on February 1.

“I feel like David (Benavidez) is a monster. He doesn’t let anyone take it away from him. When he goes in there, he’s going to kill. Of course, I think Morrell will be his toughest opponent yet, but I still see David coming out victorious. He (Morrell) has a good jab, he’s a really good fighter and he keeps the distance really well.

“I feel like he’s going to make it difficult for David in the early rounds. But as we saw with Caleb Plant, he was doing a good job of boxing in the early rounds when he fought David. But David resents his advancement. Even on the rivets, it still takes hits.

Using Caleb Plant as the reason Benavidez will defeat Morrell doesn’t make much sense. Plant is a smaller, older, underpowered fighter, and he is a completely different fighter than the 27-year-old Morrell. Plant has never been a puncher and was knocked out by Canelo Alvarez. His style is different from Morrell’s.

“I feel like when you’re boxing with a guy like David, and he keeps moving forward no matter what you do, it makes it hard to keep the same game plan and stick to it. When you have a monster like him, throwing big punches, throwing punches in bunches, it’s difficult,” Pacheco said.

That habit of Benavidez’s of walking forward resulted in him taking a lot of headshots against Oleksandr Gvozdyk in their fight last year on June 15. If Gvozdyk had targeted Benavidez’s body, instead of his cement head, he might have gotten a stoppage.

When he finally went to Benavidez’s body in the 12th, he hurt him. Benavidez’s weak midsection and the way he leans back Fury-style leaves his body wide open. Pachecho praised Benavidez’s ability to avoid taking hits to the head and said he leans over.

That’s true, but it leaves your abdomen unprotected, which is the only area where it is weak. He may not be able to withstand Morrell’s blows to the body or head because he hits harder than anyone he’s faced before and is an excellent counterpuncher.

“Their defense is crazy. He stands very upright. He is very good at repelling blows. At every camp, he’s getting better. He is learning,” Pacheco said.

His former main opponents

Benavidez’s defense is not very good. If you watched his last two fights against Oleksandr Gvozdyk and Demetrius Andrade, he was just walking forward Robocop style, blocking shots with his head, outboxing those two older fighters. Gvozdyk is 37 years old and Andrade is 36.

Neither of them are anywhere near what they were a decade ago. It would be the same if Benavidez was on the wrong side of 30 and facing a younger fighter. It wouldn’t go well for him.