By Norm Frauenheim
Benavidez-Morrell, David-versus-David, is intriguing on several levels in a fight primarily significant because it’s a new year’s first real stage-setter for a potential light-heavyweight showdown between the best of a new generation and the best in an aging one.
Three weeks after the Davids, both in their late 20s and entering their primes, meet on Feb. 1 at Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Center, the 175-pound establishment’s leading faces, Artur Beterbiev and Dmitrii Bivol, meet again on Feb 22 in a rematch of Beterbiev’s narrow scorecard victory in Saudi Arabia in October.
The winner in the first is supposed to meet the winner of the second in what could be a generational showdown. That’s the plan, anyway. That might be the problem, too. In the boxing biz, plans are just another glass jaw. They get shattered all the time.
The good news is that Benavidez-Morrell is a pick-em fight. The 28-year-old Benavidez has been a slight favorite since it was announced, probably because the unbeaten, yet former two-time super-middleweight champion has more professional experience. But Morrell, also unbeaten, has the amateur pedigree that comes with being a Cuban-born boxer. Morrell, who turns 27 this Saturday (Jan. 18) — the day after Muhammad Ali’s birthday, had a reported amateur record of 130-5.
That suggests he knows his way around the ring, a skill he might need in countering Benavidez, a Phoenix-born fighter known for his energy and ferocious pursuit in the later rounds. That’s just one element in a fight close enough to perhaps lead to a rematch, a sequel that could also get replayed in calls for a trilogy fight between the 34-year old Bivol and Beterbiev.
If Bivol wins the second, then expect a third against Beterbiev, who will be 39 years old on Tuesday, January 21 in a month that should include boxing gloves on the hooves of its traditional zodiac sign, a goat. Or is that GOAT?
Nobody, perhaps, will be more interested in each fight more than Canelo Álvarez, who has fallen out of the pound-for-pound debate, yet continues to be the pay-per-view leader. Canelo is the biggest reason for the Benavidez-Morrell fight.
He wouldn’t fight either, forcing both to move up the scale, from 168 pounds to 175. Each is 1-0 at the heavier weight in respective debuts that they won, yet each with a mixed performance. Their second appearance at light-heavy is also considered too-close-to-call in part because it’s hard to judge their debuts — an injured Benavidez, in a unanimous decision over former champion Oleksandr Gvozdyk in June and a tentative Morrell, also in a unanimous decision over Radivoje Kalajdzic in August.
Most of Canelo’s attention figures to be on Bivol-Beterbiev. A Bivol victory in that rematch might convince him to seek his own rematch with the Russian, who upset him, scoring a unanimous decision over the heavily-favored Mexican in May 2022.
For Canelo, each fight figures to be something of a scouting mission. He’s 34, presumably entering the last stage in his brilliant career. Reportedly, he’s looking for options. If he doesn’t find one in the light-heavyweight double-header in February, there’s persistent talk that he’ll turn to Terence Crawford, the welterweight great who won a junior-middleweight title in his first fight at 154 pounds in August.
Talk about that possibility, rumored ever since Crawford’s defining welterweight stoppage of Errol Spence in July 2023, was all over social media this week. This time, there was talk that an agreement was in place for Crawford to challenge Canelo, undisputed at 168 pounds, some time later in the year, perhaps in September in Las Vegas.
But none of that talk came from Canelo.
Until it does, it’s still speculation. Fair or not, his pay-per-view supremacy comes with perks, including the final say-so. If he sees an option or options in February, the Crawford possibility might get postponed or eliminated altogether.
Still, it is a potential story, part of the Goliath-sized stakes that could be there for a February twin bill that starts with the Davids.