By Dan Ambrose: Eddie Hearn wants David Benavidez to face Demetrius Andrade in a WBC & WBO 168-lb title eliminator to decide the mandatory for Canelo Alvarez with those two sanctioning bodies. Presently, undisputed super middleweight champion Canelo doesn’t have a mandatory challenger with the WBC and WBO.
For the Andrade vs. Benavidez 168-lb WBC/WBO title eliminator to take place, both fighters will need to agree to the fight.
According to Hearn, Andrade will accept, and he’s already accepted for him to take the fight against the unbeaten former two-time WBC 168lb champion Benavidez (25-0, 22 KOs).
“That’s what we’re saying. If that [WBO 168-lb] mandatory is not available for Canelo, the WBO and WBC will agree to a Benavidez against Andrade fight,” said Eddie Hearn to Fighthype.
“Both guys [Benavidez and Andrade] have got to accept. Andrade will accept. We accept now. But Benavidez has got to fight [David] Lemieux. He’ll win that fight comfortably, and then let’s see if he wants to fight Andrade.
“It’s a great fight. I rate Benavidez; I think he’s a really good fighter,” said Hearn.
It’s hard to imagine Benavidez, 25, turning down a fight against Andrade to earn a mandatory spot to force Canelo to fight him.
It’s fair to say that the ONLY way Benavidez will ever get a fight against Canelo Alvarez in this lifetime is if he becomes his mandatory challenger. Even then, it’s not a given that he’ll agree to it.
We saw how Canelo reacted when the World Boxing Council ordered him to fight Gennadiy Golovkin back in 2016. Canelo vacated his WBC title rather than face GGG.
Andrade (31-0, 19 KOs) will be going up to super middleweight to fight unbeaten Zach Parker (22-0, 16 KOs) for the WBO interim 168-lb title. However, that interim title doesn’t make the winner of the Andrade-Parker fight mandatory to Canelo.
Andrade, 33, is expected to take care of the inexperienced 27-year-old Parker, a fighter that has never fought a top 15 contender before during his seven-year professional career.
Parker has power, but he’s never been in with a top-tier fighter, and he’ll likely be lost entirely against Andrade, like a fish out of water.
For that to happen, Hearn has come up with the idea for Andrade to fight Benavidez for the WBC/WBO 168-lb eliminator.
The winner of that fight will be sitting on Canelo’s doorstep for a title shot. If Canelo wants to avoid the battle, he’d have to vacate, and that would affirm what many boxing fans already suspect that he’s been ducking Andrade and Benavidez for fear of losing to them.
Benavidez has a fight coming up against David Lemieux for the WBC interim 168-lb title, but that fight is considered a slam-dunk for him. Lemieux has power, but he’s not in the same league as a talent like Benavidez.