Morrell’s superior skills: too much for Benavidez?

Zab Judah and Anthony Dirrell feel WBC interim light heavyweight champion David Benavidez has too much experience for David Morrell (11-0, 9 KOs) and will defeat him in their 12-round main event on February 1 at the T -Mobile Arena. in Las Vegas.

12 years of damage: the price that has been taken

The wear and tear of a long and grueling 12-year career is beginning to show on the ‘Mexican Monster’ Benavidez.

Although he is young at 28 years old, physically he looks much older, like a person in his 30s, due to the punishment he has received. We’re seeing it now, when he enters fights with multiple injuries, stamina issues and slow reflexes.

In Benavidez’s last fight, his head it looked like a doorstop with the shooting of Oleksandr Gvozdyk on June 15. He wasn’t blocking anything and Gvozdyk was hitting him at will. If the Ukrainian fighter had not been retired four years ago, he probably would have knocked out Benavidez.

Dirrell has firsthand experience fighting Benavidez on September 28, 2019 and was stopped in the ninth round due to a cut. He stunned him twice with left hooks but couldn’t finish him off. Benavidez was much bigger than Dirrell and looked like a light heavyweight.

weight bully

People criticize Benavidez for fighting outside his natural weight class, competing at 168 instead of 175. Although he has been young enough to dehydrate, he probably would not have been able to do this if there had been a strict 10-pound rehydration. limits to prevent it from exploding. In other words, Benavidez has been a major bully, and Judah and Dirrell don’t mention that.

Judah believes Benavidez (29-0, 24 KOs) will knock out Morrell early, using his volume of punches. He crowds his opponents and unleashes non-stop blows. That’s what he did with Dirrell and what he tried to do with his last opponent, Oleksandr Gvozdyk. It didn’t work in that case.

“I think that fight will be four rounds. David Benavidez by knockout,” Zab Judah told MillCity Boxingchoosing Benavidez to stop David Morrell on February 1. “David comes in the first round.

“I think it’s going to last longer than that,” Anthony Dirrell said. “David (Benavidez) doesn’t have a single punch (power). It is the accumulation. David has some pop, but I don’t see the one-punch knockout.

“David Morrell may last a while. Being Cuban, he also knows how to hit. Everyone knows that Cubans are made to hit. If I have to lean one way, it is David Benavidez 100% because of his resume. We haven’t seen Morrell being tested. We have seen David tested on multiple occasions.

“We haven’t seen Morrell tested in an old fight of a magnitude like this. This fight, everyone will want to see this fight. It depends on how Morrell is going to fight,” Dirrell said when asked if Morrell can go the 12-round distance with Benavidez.

Old fashioned bags

We haven’t seen Benavidez tested in a big fight either. It’s not just Morrell. Dirrell was around 30 years old when he fought Benavidez, and well, he was in his prime. Furthermore, it was much smaller and faced the Mexican Monster, which was light and heavy in size.

Morrell has fought better guys in the amateur ranks than Benavidez has as a pro. It’s not even close. Morrell has the advantage of experience against quality opponents. The best fighters Benavidez fought were mainly older fighters, like these guys:

– Demetrio Andrade: 36
– Oleksandr Gvozdyk: 37
– David Lemieux: 35
– Roamer Alexis Angulo: 40

Caleb Plant wasn’t old when he fought Benavidez in 2023, but Canelo Alvarez had already knocked him out in 2021. He had no power. That’s the only young world-class fighter Benavidez has beaten. The rest have been old.

“David, it’s the buildup that will affect (Morrell). It has some pop. Every blow, you will feel it. I think Morrell is going to put up a fight,” Dirrell said.

“Do you think David Morrell can knock out David Benavidez?” Judah said.

“Benavidez can take a hit, though,” Dirrell said. “We’ve never really seen Benavidez hurt. I never saw it. He got knocked down, but I think it was a sudden knockdown (against Ronald Gavril on September 8, 2017, in his first fight. He was too aggressive, but that’s Benavidez.”

If Morrell is forced into an internal war, he has a chance to knock out Benavidez because he is much stronger and bigger than the guys he has been fighting at 168. Gvozdyk couldn’t fight internally. He mainly lit up Benavidez from the outside after he ran out of gas in the second half of the fight. Again, Dirrell hurt Benavidez and he was much smaller.

Morrell’s youth advantage

“I think he calmed down a little bit. He is a good counterpuncher. Then, blocking and coming back with his own counter. I think it will be a good fight. I think at first it will be a chess game. Then things will heat up in the middle of the rounds,” Dirrell said.

“I see it in four rounds,” Judah said.

“No, I don’t see Morrell arguing with him like that,” Dirrell said. “I see him move, make his shots, but be in motion. I think sometimes it’s going to get mixed up because of the blood, but I don’t see confusion like that.”

Morrell, 26, is two years younger than Benavidez but he is younger and has that cool factor going for him. He hasn’t fought in 12 years in the professional ranks like Benavidez, and it shows. So, Judah and Dirrell see the experience factor as a positive and not a negative for the Mexican monster Benavidez. When it’s early in a fighter’s career, experience is important, but not when a guy has been in the game since 2013. Then it’s a negative.

“So you’re saying Morrell has to take him into deeper waters for him to win?” Judah said.

“You have to do it, but Benavidez also gets stronger as he goes. We have to see what Morrell’s condition is before the fight,” Dirrell said. “I see David in Las Vegas right now. If you don’t go to Las Vegas a few weeks before, it’s over.”