David Benavidez continues to use talk of steroids as a selling point for his fight against WBA ‘regular’ light heavyweight champion David Morrell on February 1st.
It’s a weird way to promote the fight and get fans interested, but Benavidez doesn’t seem to have much to say during his interviews. Also, he’s still making excuses for his abysmal performance in his debut at 175 against Oleksandr Gvozdyk last June. It sounds so weak.
PPV Title Fight
Next month, Benavidez will have his WBC interim 175-lb title on the line against Morrell (11-0, 9 KOs) in their headliner on PBC on Prime Video PPV at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
“You’ve never heard my name associated with steroids. You’ve heard David Morrell’s name associated with steroids,” said David Benavidez to Xicana Boxing about David Morrell, talking about his unfounded suspicions of him being dirty ahead of their fight on February 1st.
“The guy he fought said they tested him, but they didn’t test David Morrell, even after the fight there’s no drug test. That’s weird because there’s always drug tests right after the fight. I want to tell the people if I had something to hide, why would I ask for more drug tests?
“We had nothing to hide and that’s why we’re trying to call for clean boxing. We’re testing as much as possible to make sure there’s no funny business going on.
“I’m definitely going to punish him,” said Benavidez about Morrell. “As for when it’s going to end, I don’t think about that. I’m thinking I’m going to go in and do my game plan. The difference between my last fight [Oleksandr Gvozdyk] and his fight [Radivoje Kalajdzic]. I went in there with two injured hands.
Excuses Or Reality?
“I had a torn tendon here, I had a fractured knuckle, and I had a cut when I got 10 stitches three weeks before the fight. So, I was already going through a lot of adversity. The fighter I went up against was way better than the fighter he went up against,” said Benavidez.
“I think because of that, it shows I’m a different caliber fighter. A lot of people if they had one hand injured, they’d have canceled the fight. I had two injured hands. I didn’t cancel the fight because it was a big deal.
“Me and Tank were fighting on the same card on PPV. So, imagine if I had pulled out of the fight, I would have let my fans down. I care about my fans more than anything,” said Benavidez.
What ‘The Mexican Monster’ isn’t saying is he looked worse against Gvozdyk than Morrell did in his one-sided win over Kalajdzic. Morrell hurt his opponent repeatedly in that fight to the head, and his body got stronger as the fight wore on. In contrast, Benavidez never hurt Gvozdyk and got tired after six rounds. He took a beating down the stretch.
There was no sign of Benavidez being injured in his last fight against Oleksandr Gvozdyk on June 15th. He was throwing punches with full power with both hands and didn’t look injured. where Benavidez looked bad was how he got tired in the second half, took a lot of hard shots from the 37-year-old Gvozdyk, and was hurt to the body.
Fatigue has nothing to do with injured hands and everything to do with Benavidez not carrying to extra weight well.
Benavidez has made excuses for his poor performance in his debut at 175 against Oleksandr Gvozdyk, blaming injured hands and a recent cut. It would have been better if he had just let his performance speak for itself rather than give excuses afterward.
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