By Dan Ambrose: Once David Benavidez gets Ronald Ellis out of the way this Saturday night, he wants to face Jermall Charlo in September if he’s ready to come up to 168 to face him.
Benavidez (23-0, 20 KOs) views himself and WBC middleweight champion Jermall (31-0, 22 KOs) as the best fighters with Premier Boxing Champions [PBC] and Showtime.
A fight between Benavidez and Charlo would help create a lot of noise in the boxing world, turning the winner into a bigger name.
What Benavidez is hoping is that he’ll be able to use a victory over Charlo as a springboard to get a fight against Canelo Alvarez in 2022. It’ll be hard for Canelo to ignore Benavidez if he takes Jermall’s scalp.
For now, Benavidez, 24, needs to take care of business first against Ronald Ellis (18-1-2, 12 KOs) this Saturday, March 13th, on Showtime from the Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Connecticut.
Benavidez wants Charlo fight in September
“The Charlo fight is the one that I want to make happen in September,” said Benavidez during Thursday’s final news conference. “Charlo has a lot to say about me, and we are probably the best fighters in PBC and at SHOWTIME.
“He doesn’t really have anyone else at 160, so it seems like a fight that should be fairly easy to make. I think Charlo makes the most sense because we both need a signature win to get to Canelo,” said Benavidez.
The fans would want to see Charlo and Benavidez fight, which would make a great for the boxing world. It’s the type of match-up that would need fans for it to happen, so scheduling the match for September might work.
Benavidez is right about Charlo having no one to fight at 160 because the only name guy in the division is Gennadiy Golovkin. If he were interested in fighting Charlo, he would have done it years ago.
Charlo should have moved up in weight to the 168lb division already, but it seems obvious why he hasn’t done so. By staying at 160, Charlo is getting easy money defending against the no-name contenders, not risk anything.
Charlo has the size of 168-pounder, which gives him an advantage against his 160-pound opponents. All the advantages that Charlo has at 160 will disappear when he moves up to 168 and begins fighting guys his own size.
Hence, Charlo is dragging his feet about moving up in weight to super middleweight because there are many unknowns for him in that weight class.
It doesn’t appear that Charlo is eager to fight Benavidez, though, and it’s probably never going to happen.
Does Charlo want to take risks?
Unfortunately, we haven’t seen any behavior from Charlo, 30, that suggests he’s interested in coming up to 168 to face Benavidez.
On the contrary, the comments Jermall has made about Benavidez needing to be vaccinated before he would agree to fight him shows a lack of interest.
Further, Charlo’s remark about not wanting to fight anyone under the age of 25 would appear to be aimed directly at Benavidez, letting him know that he’s not going to fight him.
Charlo seems to be enjoying himself since his win over Sergiy Derevyanchenko last September.
It’s been six months since Charlo last fought, and he doesn’t have a fight scheduled, and it’s unclear whether he’ll be out of action until later this year.
He’s been posting on social media with pictures of him on the water in a boat and living it up. It makes you wonder whether Charlo’s mind is still in the sport because he’s already made a lot of money.
It’s got to be tough for Charlo to come back down to earth and face someone young, hungry, and powerful like Benavidez. Showtime doesn’t seem to mind that Charlo is taking easy fights against no-name opposition in fights with no real entertainment value due to the one-sided nature.
Charlo’s last six opponents:
- Sergey Derevyanchenko
- Brandon Adams
- Dennis Hogan
- Matt Korobov
- Hugo Centeno Jr
- Jorge Sebastian Heiland