Ex-WBC super middleweight titleholder David Benavidez 28-0 (24) is resigned to the fact he is unlikely to ever get a shot at undisputed 168-pound champion Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez 61-2-2 (39).
The 27-year-old from Phoenix, Arizona has long been lobbying for fight against Mexican superstar Alvarez, 33, to no avail.
Benavidez will instead face Oleksandr Gvozdyk 20-1 (16) for the vacant WBC interim light heavyweight title on the undercard of the WBA lightweight title fight between Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis 29-0 (27) and Frank Martin 18-0 (12) at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada on Saturday night.
“I really don’t care about Canelo,” Benavidez said at the final press conference. “If he didn’t want to get the fight at 168, we’re at 175 now and we’re looking to face the best here.
“The better the competition gets for me, the better I get myself. That’s why I’ve never shied away from no hard fights. I’ve been working with world champions since I was 14 years old and the best has always come out of me. When the bright lights get turned on, I always show up.
“Oleksandr Gvozdyk is a great fighter. I’m prepared for him. We actually sparred when I was 21 years old. I know he’s in the best shape of his life. We’ve got two warriors going up against each other. We had a hell of a sparring session — three sparring sessions, to be exact.”
Benavidez’s father and trainer sang from the same hymn book in an interview with Fight Hub TV.
“I believe that there’s bigger fights to be made,” David Benavidez Sr said of a potential showdown with Alvarez.
“[Dmitry] Bivol beat Canelo Alvarez so we’re trying to beat the one that beat the one. I think it would be an honor for us to fight Bivol because he beat Zurdo Ramirez, he beat Canelo Alvarez, so if we can be the one to beat the face of boxing I think that would put David in a greater position than where we are now.
“We’re trying to look for the bigger fighters, the dangerous fighters, the fighters that nobody really wants to face. So those are the ones that we’re after.
“Oleksandr has nothing to lose, you know, a lot to gain. If we beat Oleksandr we’re not going to get the credit that we deserve… he only has one loss, bro. So like I said, he’s not a push over.
“We trained extremely hard to look spectacular, not just to win the fight. We’re going to try to hurt him, we’re going to see what we can do and put him out.
“I think we sparred him about six years ago. I like what David did in that sparring, he looked spectacular, he looked really good against a guy who was already a big fighter at that time.
“And now he made a lot of changes and I think he’s going to look even better than back then.”
