By Norm Frauenheim
LAS VEGAS – For the first time ever, David Benavidez is looking up to look into an opponent’s eyes.
It’s an unfamiliar sight, yet also a symbol, a metaphor of sorts for a fighter who was looked down upon for much of his career.
Two decades ago, he was a chubby 9-year-old running through ropes and bouncing off bags at the old Central Gym near downtown Phoenix. Mike Tyson was there, probably never knowing that one day he would call that kid the Mexican Monster.
His prizefighting career began without any of the attention so often focused upon Olympic boxers and Police Athletic League champions. Instead, he fought quietly in small Mexican towns south of the border with Arizona.
He won but nobody knew, or even cared. All of the attention was on his brother, Jose Benavidez Jr., a celebrated prospect, an amateur prodigy who won a national Golden Gloves title as a 16-year-old.
David was just little brother, a kid running around an old-school gym like it was a playground. There was never any sign that little brother might transform himself into a fighter as feared as perhaps any in today’s generation.
But here he is, still somewhat unknown, yet ready to show just how far he has traveled in a boxing career as unlikely as any.
The burden of proof is still there, but so is the opportunity to knock out old doubts Saturday night in a bid for a title in a third weight class against the bigger Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez at T-Mobile Arena in a pay-per-view, Cinco de Mayo bout.
In a mock weigh-in Friday afternoon at the MGM Grand, Benavidez looked up into Ramirez eyes with an intensity that suggested his career path had finally reached a critical juncture. It was as if he was looking at all of the doubts he has long encountered and conquered.
“The doubters have always been there and are still there,’’ said Benavidez, who believes the bout against Zurdo is a chance for him to deliver an opening statement on how good he is and how much better he intends to be throughout the next decade.
In many ways, his Cinco de May appearance is a multi-sided chance to finally and definitively introduce his ferocious skillset to an audience that still doubts, even about his right to call himself Mexican.
At a media event Thursday night celebrating the boxing history that has evolved around Cinco de Mayo, Julio Cesar Chavez, the face of Mexico’s great ring tradition, seemed to dismiss Benavidez, who has a Mexican father, Ecuadorian mom and grew up American on Phoenix’s westside streets
In Mexico, many don’t even know who he is, Chavez told reporters after a discussion and film that included his old rival, Oscar De La Hoya, Zurdo’s promoter.
As Benavidez stood in front of Ramirez, the intensity in his stare seemed to say that on Saturday all of Mexico will know and remember him.
“This is going to be my best performance to date,’’ he said.
But the risks are there. Benavidez, a former super-middleweight champion and current light-heavyweight champ, is jumping up 25 pounds in his bid to take two cruiserweight belts held by Zurdo, a popular and soft-spoken Mexican champion Mazatlan.
There’s no bigger jump in weight in boxing. The boiler-plate question, of course, is just how Benavidez will react. At the official weigh-in behind closed doors Friday morning Benavidez was at 196.8 pounds. Zurdo was at a sculpted 200-even.
Benavidez’ father-and-trainer, Jose Sr., wants his son to be at 210 pounds at opening bell Saturday night. Jose Sr. expects Zurdo to be at 225 pounds.
The extra pounds, Jose Sr. says, will fortify his son when Zurdo leans in on him. Still, the open question is just how David Benavidez, who was campaigning in the 168-pound division just a few years ago, reacts the first few times he feels Zurdo punches leveraged by about a 15-pound advantage.
For Benavidez, the answer might be the difference between instantly forgettable and forever memorable.
