By Jimmy James: According to an interview yesterday conducted by Golden Era Boxing with Jose Benavidez, father, and trainer of WBC two-time world champion David Benavidez, he dismissed any claims of his promoter Sampson Lewkowicz pricing his son out to fight against undefeated world champion Demetrius Andrade.
WBO 160-lb champion Andrade is moving up to super middleweight to become the mandatory for Canelo Alvarez, who arguably ducked Demetrius and Benavidez.
In the interview, he also put down the claims of Caleb Plant, saying they didn’t want the fight.
“We offered Canelo more than $50M to fight against David, and they simply rejected the offer,” said Benavidez Sr. “We were only going to cash around $5M and Canelo was going to pocket the rest of the money, so the money part won’t be an issue with Andrade.”
When asked about the claims of Lewkonicz about pricing Benavidez out for a fight with Andrade, Benavidez Sr said, “at the end of the day, we (father and trainer) decide, not the promoter! Of course, the promoter will try to gain as much as possible for each fight, but we make the final decision, and I am telling you the money part won’t be a problem.”
Benavidez Sr also pointed out that Eddie Hearn hasn’t sent any contracts to his team and calls him out to start negotiating soon.
“We just want to sit down with Andrade’s team and start negotiating, so I hope Eddie Hearn hears us so we can start to negotiate,” Benavidez Sr. continued. “We want the fight with Andrade because it will elevate Benavidez to the next level since he is a very good boxer.”
Benavidez Sr. also dismissed the claim that Caleb Plant tried to contact his team to fight a few years back. “We want to fight Plant, it is personal with him, and it’s even easier to make than against Andrade because we are both on PBC, and the money is not the problem.”
Benavidez Sr also repeated, “I make these decisions, and if he wants to make the fight, he can call us instead of talking and talking, but he is afraid to fight us like the rest of them.”
As of today, Plant has sent no contracts to team Benavidez nor any of his representatives, and they haven’t answered a request to clarify their position.
I will be contacting team Andrade this week to clarify their position, but the claims of prices are useless if there are no actual contracts sent. Many boxers today are making up narratives to avoid serious challenges. I am here to remind everyone that thanks to Hearns, boxing fans never saw a much anticipated undisputed bout between Anthony Joshua and Deontay Wilder.
I also want to remind boxing fans that Caleb Plant did not unify with any British champions after beating Jose Uzcategui. So it is not out the question that if he didn’t want to fight Callum Smith or Billy Saunders or even bothered to send them a contract after almost three years as a world champion, it is highly suspicious he would send one to Benavidez, who is way more dangerous and avoided.
