By Patrick McHugh: David Benavidez (16-0, 15 KOs) maintained his unbeaten record in stopping a game but limited 28-year-old Denis Douglin (20-5, 13 KOs) in the 10th round on Friday night in super middleweight action at the 2300 Arena, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The 19-year-old Benavidez knocked Douglin down at the end of the 9th round after hitting him with four consecutive uppercuts to the head. At the start of the 10th round, Benavidez hit Douglin with a huge right hand to the head that caused him to fall backwards against the ropes. The referee then stopped the fight at that point in a mercy stoppage.
Benavidez, #10 WBA, looked pretty powerful in the fight in landing a lot of big power shots to the head and body of Douglin. The 6’2″ Benavidez’s uppercuts were particularly impressive. He was catching the shorter Douglin with them all night long, and hurting him. However, Douglin showed a good chin in being able to take the kind of punishment that Benavidez was dishing out in the fight. A lot of fighters would have crumpled with the shots that Benavidez was landing in the fight.
The fight was fairly close in the first four rounds, as Douglin was coming forward and landing some nice power power shots to the head and body of Benavidez.
In the 5th round, Benavidez hurt Douglin with a big right uppercut to the head in the last minute of the round. Douglin seemed to slow down after getting hit with that shot, but he was able to make it out of the round in one piece.
Benavidez hurt Douglin in the 6th round with a big left to the body. After the bell sounded to end the round, Benavidez nailed a defenseless Douglin with a right to the head. The refeee didn’t do anything to take a point away from Benavidez despite the fact that it was clearly a late punch.
In the 7th round, the upper ring rope sagged when a tired looking Benavidez backed up to the ropes and rested on it. The action was then stopped so that the ring post could be worked on. It took them more than two minutes for them to fix the problem. This helped Douglin, as he looked tired before the action was stopped. The remainder of the round an energized Douglin smothered Benavidez on the inside and nailed him with body shots.
Benavidez landed some nice uppercuts to get the better of Douglin in the 8th.
Douglin came out fast in the 9th looking to attack Benavidez’s body and smother his offense. However, Benavidez hurt Douglin with four straight uppercuts in the final seconds of the round to put him down on the canvas. A badly hurt Douglin got back to his feet and the round ended just as the action resumed. It was lucky for Douglin at the time because he didn’t look like he would have made it out of the round if there was a little more time.
The 6’2″ Benavidez looked like a very good fighter with a TON of potential at 168. With Benavidez’s punching power, I think he can go far in the super middleweight division. However, the one limiting factor to Benavidez’s ability to progress to the next level is whether he can stay at 168. As good as Benavidez is right now, I think he would be chopped apart at light heavyweight by the more powerful, more talented fighters like Adonis Stevenson, Artur Beterbiev and Sergey Kovalev. Those are very good fighters. Benavidez does have youth on his side that should help him wait those guys out until they retired. When those guys are gone, there will likely be other fighters with equal talent that will move into their places. Benavidez is too easy to hit, too upright, and too limited in terms of his stamina for him to move up to light heavyweight and do well. If Benavidez can stay at super middleweight his entire career, I think he can accomplish big things with his career. He’s got the kind of talent that would give nightmares to the top fighters in the super middleweight division like Gilberto Ramirez, Badou Jack, Callum Smith, George Groves, and James DeGale. Calllum Smith is a similar type of fighter to Benavidez, but he doesn’t punch to the head as good as him. A fight between those two super middleweights would be a good one. At 19, Benavidez is likely to get more powerful as he ages. It’s rare that a fighter has gained his full strength at 19. A fighter usually gains more power up until their mid to late 20s. It’s scary to think of Benavidez getting stronger than he is now, because he’s got freakish punching power.
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In other results on the card, undefeated lightweight Alejandro Luna (21-0, 15 KOs) defeated replacement opponent Naim Nelson (13-2, 1 KOs) by a 10 round unanimous decision. The final judges scores were 99-91, 98-92, 97-93.