By Bart Barry-
Saturday on Showtime undefeated former super middleweight titlist David “El Bandera Roja” Benavidez stopped Colombian ironchin Roamer Alexis Angulo with 10 rounds of abuse sustained enough to make Angulo’s corner wave the match’s completion six minutes early. Friday afternoon Benavidez missed weight widely enough not to try making weight, losing his title yet again without losing a match.
Still it’s a joy to get back to writing about a prizefighter who thrills, howsoever baggy and loose be the circumstances and his skin.
Making weight might be a great deal more difficult for Benavidez than he lets on. Theories of weightloss and -gain, fat and muscle, change hourly in this country, of course, and we’ll not confuse what follows for science any more than the last halfcentury of “science” on the matter should be confused for science, but rather let us entertain ourselves with a metaphor of containers.
Say you have 10 containers that at all times wish themselves full with water and have access to an abundance of water. Now say you have 100 containers with the same access and wishes. Now imagine that 10 full cups of water is your ideal weight. You have but 10 cups and all are full? Easy enough. Just don’t add any more cups and homeostasis wins out.
Now imagine you have 100 cups and 10 full cups is still your ideal weight. Every cup must be kept at or below 10-percent capacity, and all the cups have a wish to be full. Allowing homeostasis its course and merely precluding a 101st cup be added is not a fraction your task, is it? No, at every moment of every day you must find a means of thwarting 100 thirsty cups with access to an abundance of water.
This metaphor, cups as fat cells, is good an explanation as any why people who lose massive amounts of weight, as Benavidez once did, nearly always gain it back with interest. What simpletons crow about “discipline” miss the point entirely; Benavidez once was disciplined enough to lose nearly 100 pounds, a feat well beyond the homeostasis crowd’s average member, but precluding every bite he puts in his mouth from replenishing what fat cells he accumulated years ago requires much more than skipping desserts during training camp.
This is why you hear the wonder in Benavidez’s voice as he talks about “something went wrong” in camp; he can’t believe that one dietary indiscretion three or four weeks ago had such an outsized and lasting effect; the math of his metabolism is not at all linear.
What Benavidez said after Saturday’s match is what you believe, not what he believes. Smart kid. He does the (linear) math of a lousy metabolism and incredible fast-twitch muscles and reads the script every varsity-level athlete with a fast metabolism would pen: I didn’t try hard enough, Coach, but I will next time. He knows the curse of his metabolism is offset, for now, by the blessing of his athleticism, and he knows no one who hasn’t lost 100 pounds has any idea the impossibility of keeping those pounds from returning, and he’s a rich 23-year-old professional athlete, too, so he steers well away from anything like self-indulgence. In public at least.
Trouble is, this weighty issue for Benavidez will grow only weightier as he ages. If he’s still fighting under 200 pounds on his 30th birthday it’ll be a greater feat than anything he’s done in a prizefighting ring thus far. He probably hasn’t the defensive chops to take his show to cruiserweight, either, and offensively gifted as he is he hasn’t power that’ll migrate successfully to 200. He knows this, too. It’s why he isn’t following in the footsteps of Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez – the other guy who shut-out Angulo – and skedaddling to light heavyweight without having fought the best men at super middleweight. How much does anyone talk about Zurdo (40-0, 26 KOs) anymore?
Another bandera roja from Saturday’s postfight interview was just how eager Benavidez is to start over reclaiming his old place in the 168-pound division.
Benavidez: I missed weight, and I’m sorry.
Aficionados: You’re forgiven if you fight Callum Smith.
Benavidez: I know I have a long road ahead and your forgiveness will only come with time.
Aficionados: Kid, everyone makes mistakes – just make weight for your fight with Smith.
Benavidez: I’m willing to work hard to earn back your trust.
Aficionados: No need to do that if you fight Smith.
Benavidez: I’m going to start over and fight only medium-level contenders until you trust me again.
Aficionados: We trust you’ll make a great fight with Smith.
Benavidez: No immediate title shots for me until I deserve them again.
Who wins a match between The Ring’s champion and its top contender? Hard to say. Since winning the WBSS, Smith has been alternately inactive and unimpressive. You’d have to favor the guy who knocked the stuffing out George Groves, though, in a match with Benavidez, if only slightly.
Benavidez didn’t learn anything in his Saturday heavybag session with Angulo but at least he got to do lots of rounds and punching. Smith, meanwhile, spent his quarantine negotiating a fight with Canelo that didn’t come off because two geezer celebrities pulled a date-and-switch with Mexican Independence Day weekend, or because Smith priced himself out.
Good God, but there are so many eligible contenders, paydays and titlists at or around 168 pounds right now it’s awful to see the division’s two best fight but annually against the likes of John Ryder and Alexis Angulo! Smith, as the recognized champion, no longer wishes to fight somebodies for less than millions, and Benavidez surely figures that, at age 23, he’s in no hurry. Both may be squandering what get remembered as their physical primes.
Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry
