Canelo could KO David Benavidez says Antonio Tarver

By Boxing News - 05/23/2022 - Comments

By Sam Volz: Antonio Tarver believes David Benavidez’s fighting style is literally “tailormade” for Canelo Alvarez and could get knocked out by the superstar when the two eventually meet.

Tarver points out that Benavidez (26-0, 23 KOs) lacks the size and technical boxing ability of WBA light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol. As a result, Benavidez won’t be able to do to Canelo what Bivol did in defeating the Mexican star earlier this month on May 7th.

Unfortunately, Canelo’s unwillingness to fight Benavidez makes it impossible to know how he’d do against the unbeaten young 25-year-old star.

Canelo hasn’t seemed eager to share the ring with Benavidez, making it impossible for fans to know who the better fighter is between them.

David Benavidez’s style is tailormade for Canelo,” said Antonio Tarver to Fighthype. “He’s going to be in range for all of that hot s*** to the body and to the head.”

In looking at Benavidez’s effective combination punching in his third-round knockout win over David Lemieux last Saturday night, it’s clear that his style would be a big problem for Canelo.

Bivol’s combination punching seemed to bother Canelo the most in their fight on May 7th, as there was nothing the superstar could do to match that output.

Canelo mainly covered up when Bivol would unload on him with his combos, and he looked exhausted by the third round.

The type of fighters that Canelo does well against are guys that throw single shots and have a low work rate. Canelo is a classic counter puncher, and those types of fighters tend to struggle when fighting opposition that throws sustained combinations the way Benavidez & Bivol do.

“I don’t know. It’s who he thinks is the biggest threat,” Tarver continued when asked ‘who is Canelo’s biggest threat at 168?’ When you look at David Benavidez, he doesn’t have the movement to negate what Canelo brings to the table,” said Tarver.

Benavidez will be on the attack against Canelo, and obviously, he won’t be trying to move around the ring to avoid him. However, Bivol didn’t use a lot of movement against Canelo, and he did quite well.

The type of fighters that need to move against Canelo is the ones that lack the power and, more importantly, the work rate to keep him bottled up on defense. In other words, the fighters that Canelo fought late year in Billy Joe Saunders, Caleb Plant, and Avni Yildrim.

“He’s not as big as Bivol, and he doesn’t have the technical skills that Bivol has. So that’s a different fight altogether. He [Canelo] might stop Benavidez.

“They should fight then. Stop waiting on Canelo and clean out the division,” said Tarver when told that Benavidez and Jermall Charlo have talked trash back & forth lately.

“Charlo is going to be hard for any of those guys to get through, bro,” said Tarver.

Jermall Charlo doesn’t seem interested in fighting Benavidez, unfortunately. Mike Tyson tried to get Charlo to call out Benavidez, but he wouldn’t do it.

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