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David Benavidez is slated to next fight David Lemieux sometime this spring in an interim WBC super middleweight championship matchup.
Since the bout against the Canadian knockout artist hasn’t been officially announced yet, the former two-time WBC super middleweight titlist Benavidez (25-0, 22 KOs) is entertaining the idea of fighting Demetrius Andrade, the WBO middleweight champion who is soon looking to make the leap to 168 pounds.
“He’s another great fighter. If I can’t get any other fights. He’s expressed that he would like to fight me. I expressed that I would like to fight him. Why not make it happen?” Benavidez told a group of reporters this week. “I want to challenge myself. I’m tired of talking s— and going back and forth with fighters that don’t want to fight. It’s a waste of time. It’s a waste of energy. If a fighter does want to fight, that’s what I’m here for. I’m not here to be on social media talking s— to everybody.”
The 25-year-old Benavidez first became a WBC world titlist in 2017 when he beat Ronald Gavril. After beating Gavril again in 2018, Benavidez was stripped of his title soon after testing positive for the banned substance benzoylecgonine, the key ingredient in cocaine.
Benavidez regained the WBC title again when he knocked out Anthony Dirrell in 2019 but failed to defend the title in 2020 when he blew weight against Roamer Alexis Angulo and lost the title on the scales.
At one point, Benavidez seemingly possessed a golden ticket to fight Canelo Alvarez during the Mexican fighter’s quest to becoming undisputed champion in the division, but Alvarez ultimately picked up the title Benavidez vacated during his one-sided drubbing of Calum Smith.
Benavidez has since been relegated to fighting inferior challengers like Ronald Ellis and Kyrone Davis while consistently calling out the likes of Alvarez and PBC stablemates Caleb Plant and Jermall Charlo.
Andrade (31-0) may ultimately serve as a viable dance partner – especially since his promoter Eddie Hearn is yearning to land a big name opponent for his fighter. Hearn also recently admitted Andrade is struggling to make 160 pounds.
“I feel like [Andrade] is still a sneaky fighter. He hasn’t had to move around because he hasn’t had a fighter push him. So I can’t expect him to sit in there and brawl with me,” said Benavidez.
“I feel confident I can win the fight. It will be a great fight. I’m here to make the fights the fans want to see … I’m not going to put my career on hold because these other guys don’t want to fight me.”
As soon as he finished his statement, Benavidez doubled as an intrepid reporter and revealed another big fight that will be taking place in the division.
“Charlo is going with Plant,” he said. “That fight is going to be made, to be honest with you. I called both of those guys out. [Charlo] said he was going to stay at 160, [Plant] said he doesn’t want to fight me, and now they are going to fight each other … I still want those fights. If they don’t want to fight me they can fight each other and we can figure it out after.”
Manouk Akopyan is a sports journalist, writer and broadcast reporter. He’s also a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America and MMA Journalists Association. He can be reached on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube at @ManoukAkopyan, via email at manouk[dot]akopyan[at]gmail.com or on www.ManoukAkopyan.com.