By Jeff Aranow: Former world 168 pound champion Anthony Dirrell (30-1-1, 24 KOs) will be fighting for his old WBC super middleweight title against unbeaten knockout artist David Benavidez (18-0, 17 KOs) on September 9 at a still to be determined venue in Los Angeles, California.
Dirrell, 32, was supposed to be fighting #1 WBC Callum Smith for the vacant WBC 168 lb. title, but Smith chose to take part in the World Boxing Super Series instead for the potential of winning $10 million if he can win the tourney.
This is a big test for the 20-year-old Benavidez to be taking on a fighter as talented and as experienced as Dirrell. Benavidez recently destroyed a very good fighter in Rogelio Medina in stopping him in the 8th round on May 20 in Laredo, Texas.
Benavidez, 6’2”, knocked Medina down three times in dropping him in rounds 6, 7 and 8 before the fight was stopped in the 8th round. Benavidez’s ferocious punching power proved to be too much for the 28-year-old Medina to handle in the fight.
Dirrell recently stopped Norbert Nemesapati earlier this year in the 6th round on January 13. That was Dirrell’s third straight victory since losing his WBC World super middleweight title to Badou Jack by a 12 round majority decision on April 23, 2015. In the last couple of years, Dirrell has beaten Marco Antonio Rubio, Caleb Truax and Nemesapati.
Dirrell has pretty good power. He might not be quite as good a puncher as Benavidez, but he’s pretty close, and he’s got better hand speed. Dirrell doesn’t miss too often when he’s putting his shots together. If Dirrell opens up with some combinations, I wouldn’t be surprised if he takes Benavidez out of there at some point. It would likely need to take place early in the fight though.
If Dirrell doesn’t get to Benavidez early, he might not be around in the later rounds to try and get to him. If Dirrell is still around late in the fight, he might be punch drunk from absorbing a lot of the big shots from Benavidez. Dirrell needs to stay aware of the fact that he cannot let Benavidez hang around for too long without trying to get him out of there, because he’s a murderous puncher with both hands.
Benavidez worked as a sparring partner to help middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin get ready for his March 18 fight against Danny Jacobs. Working with a talented fighter like Golovkin has to have helped the talent and overall boxing skills of Benavidez. It wouldn’t be surprising if Benavidez got more form sparing with Golovkin than vice versa. Getting experience against a talent like Golovkin is going to be a huge plus for Benavidez going into a match against Dirrell.
I doubt that Dirrell is going to be getting similar experience against a top fighter in sparring. Benavidez is now obviously battle tested after working with the hard hitting Golovkin as his sparring partner. It’s unclear how Dirrell’s punching power compares to that of Triple G. One thing Dirrell does have that Golovkin doesn’t is size. At 6’2”, he’s a lot taller than Golovkin.
Benavidez is going to be dealing with a taller fighter than Golovkin when he gets inside the ring with Dirrell, and the hand speed will be a lot different. Dirrell is faster than Golovkin. If Benavidez isn’t able to get Dirrell out of there, it’s going to prove to be a very difficult fight for him. Benavidez isn’t hard to hit. If Dirrell can put hands on Benavidez for any length of time, he could take the fight out of him and potentially score a knockout at some point along the way.
If Dirrell is still at his best, it could prove to be a difficult fight for the 20-year-old Benavidez. I don’t know if Benavidez has enough seasoning for him to take on a guy with the kind of power, size and experience as Dirrell. For boxing fans that are a little confused by the Dirrell name, this isn’t Andre Dirrell, the guy that recently beat Jose Uzcategui by a disqualification win.
Anthony Dirrell doesn’t get knocked out or even knocked down. He’s usually the one that’s doing the knocking down. Unlike Andre Dirrell, Anthony has never been off his feet during his 12-year pro career. Dirrell does have problems with pressure fighters, as we saw in his loss to Badou Jack in 2015, and his 12 round draw against Sakio Bika in their first fight on December 7, 2013. Dirrell beat Bika by a 12 round unanimous decision in their rematch on August 16, 2014. It was a much better fight for Dirrell the second time around against Bika, mainly because he stayed off the ropes and didn’t let him work him over like he did in the first fight.
Dirrell will need to stay in the center of the ring if he wants to beat Benavidez. If Dirrell falls back into his old pattern of backing up against the ropes like he did against Bika and Badou jack, then he’ll likely get knocked out. I don’t think for a second that Dirrell can take 12 hard rounds of punishment against the ropes against a guy with the kind of power that Benavidez possesses. That would be a really amateurish move on Dirrell’s part if he tries to fight off the ropes.
Dirrell might not have any choice but to fight off the ropes if his stamina doesn’t hold together against Benavidez because it takes a lot of energy to stay in the center of the ring. I don’t know if Dirrell has the stamina good enough for him to stay active for the full 12 round fight without him needing to go to the ropes like he usually does when he’s not fights pressure fighters.
It’s too bad Benavidez is getting such a tough opponent in Dirrell to be fighting for the vacant WBC super middleweight title. If Benavidez were fighting for the WBA title against George Groves or Tyron Zeuge, he would stand a better chance against those guys. Both of them are flawed in their own ways. Benavidez would be a handful for either of them.