Trainer Stephen Edwards questions whether David Benavidez will be the same fighter after absorbing a lot of punishment from the powerful, young, athletic Cuban David Morrell last Saturday night in Las Vegas.
Edwards notes that Benavidez’s face looked badly marked up, and he’d been hurt several times by Morrell. The 11th was a particularly difficult one for Benavidez, as he was getting hammered by Morrell. Luckily, the round ended before he could be finished off.
The 12-year pro Benavidez has had a long career, and he’s already showing signs of wear from those years. Most fighters are shot by the time they get that far in their careers. Benavidez has gotten by with him fighting smaller fighters, but it still adds up.
We got a glimpse of the miles on his engine last Saturday, with him looking a lot older than Morrell and taking a bad beating.
A Grueling Battle
Benavidez hit Morrell twice after the bell, and when the Cuban responded, the referee docked him a point. Benavidez’s infraction was overlooked.
Morrell was the stronger fighter at the end and was dishing out serious punishment to the face of Benavidez. The Mexican Monster’ no longer resembled himself.
Benavidez got the 12-round unanimous decision based on his earlier work, but he may have paid a price for his win. If he’s going to fight the winner of the Artur Beterbiev vs. Dmitry Bivol 2 rematch, he might be food for either of those killers.
They would feast on a depleted ‘Mexican Monster.’ If Benavidez isn’t up to the task of fighting the Beterbiev-Bivol 2 winner, Morrell will step up to take the fight. He’s the younger fighter with fewer miles on his odometer than Benavidez.
“Maybe, but they may have left a piece of themselves in the ring. That was a rough fight. Benavidez looked it. He looked like Felix Trinidad did when he beat Vargas. [December 2, 2000],” said Stephen Edwards to MillCity Boxing when asked if he would like to see a rematch between David Morrell and David Benavidez.
“If you follow Tito’s career after that, a year later, he was done [when he lost to Bernard Hopkins]. After the Bernard fight, there was no more Tito. That was a rough fight [Morrell vs. Benavidez]. Morrell has big a** hands, he’s a very strong guy, and he’s athletic. He hit Benavidez with some s***. That was a rough fight.
“You could see the stress on David’s face. That was not no easy fight. I was impressed with Morrell. He was strong at the end. He was in good condition. I thought Benavidez won eight or nine rounds. That was a hard fight. That boy [Morrell] is strong, he’s athletic, he’s talented, he came to win. He’s young and he’s in his prime. He buzzed Benavidez with a couple of shots.”
Benavidez’s Struggle
Benavidez looked like he was expecting a litter of kittens. He was very stressed because Morrell was still there in the later rounds, and he hit him with shots in between pitty-pat combinations. Morrell was doing serious damage.
If this had been an old-fashioned 15-round fight, Morrell would have likely knocked Benavidez out because he was exhausted by the end. He had nothing on his shots and was getting rocked by Morrell.
“Morrell started buzzing him a couple of times. His [Benavidez] face got marked up. He got a little fatigued,” said Edwards.
Stephen puts it lightly when he says that Benavidez’s face got marked up and he is a “little fatigued.” His face resembled the Rocky Balboa character from his first fight with Apollo Creed. He’d absorbed a career’s worth of punishment from Morrell.
