Via Dan Ambrose: Oscar De La Hoya promoter says Canelo Alvarez “will NEVER fight“David Benavidez because he is so “talented” and “young”.
The sad thing is that Canelo (58-2-2, 39 KOs) holds the undisputed super middleweight champion, while Benavidez is the WBC interim 168-lb champion and Alvarez’s mandatory belt with that punished body.
Let’s say Canelo chooses to keep his 168-lb WBC belt. In that case, he will be required to defend against Benavidez at some point unless the World Boxing Council crowns him Franchise champion, which would allow the Mexican star permanently change young guns.
“Benavidez vs. Canelo: Canelo will never fight him. He’s so young and talented”, shared Oscar De La Hoya on social networks.
If Canelo decides to never fight Benavidez (26-0, 23 KOs), he will still need to fight other quality fighters for him to keep his popularity as he is now. He can’t fight as many underdogs as he did before he was educated by Dmitry Bivol last month.
Benavidez, 25, is in a predicament as he’s done his best to become Canelo’s mandatory and provisional 168-lb WBC champion, but there’s nothing he can do to force the fight. fight.
Without the WBC ordering Canelo to fight Benavidez, there was nothing he could do to make that happen.
Also, if the WBC orders Canelo to take on Benavidez, he can always leave the belt blank as he did when sanctioning authorities forced Gennadiy Golovkin’s mandatory return in 2016. That would be the worst nightmare. for WBC.
If you’re the WBC, you have to worry about ordering a match between Canelo and Benavidez because if the Mexican star reacts angrily to that move, he could leave his belt empty. Obviously Benavidez will win it, but WBC will be left with a much less popular champion.
Oscar De La Hoya on Canelo Alvarez vs David Benavidez… pic.twitter.com/I7didFGjNK
– Michael Benson (@MichaelBensonn) October 4, 2022
It will be interesting to see how long it will be before the WBC finally orders Canelo to defend against Benavidez. I mean, they had to do it at some point because Benavidez has been the WBC must-have for Canelo’s belt for over a year, and he’s now the interim champion after beating David Lemieux in May of last year.
Canelo recently revealed that he is battling a left hand injury and that he intends to have surgery to correct the problem. The surgery could keep Canelo out of the ring until September 2023.
