By Sean Jones: Demetrius Andrade & David Benavidez both made it clear today at their kickoff press conference that undisputed super middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez is not worthy of discussion ahead of their fight next month on November 25th on Showtime PPV.
The winner of the Benavidez-Andrade fight next month will be in a position to challenge Canelo for his four titles, but as we’ve seen in the past, it doesn’t mean anything when a fighter is mandatory for one of Alvarez’s belts. It doesn’t guarantee that he’ll fight them.
Throughout his career, Alvarez has shown little interest in fighting Benavidez or Andrade, and it’s unlikely that he will start now. That being the case, the November 25th Benavidez-Andrade fight might be as good as it gets for either of these fighters.
Benavidez is young enough to hang around for other big fights, but it’s questionable whether he’ll ever face a big name like Canelo. Those types of fighters come around rarely, and there isn’t anyone out there with that kind of star potential.
Canelo will either fight the winner or put the World Boxing Council in a position where they’ll need to come up with a reason why he doesn’t need to defend against either. That’ll be interesting to see what the WBC comes up with to allow Canelo to avoid the winner.
Andrade (32-0, 19 KOs) feels that it’s useless to sit around, waiting for Canelo to fight him because it’s never happened, and he’s been chasing that fight for years.
During today’s face-off, Benavidez looked much heavier standing next to the 35-year-old Andrade, like a full-fledged light heavyweight standing next to a middleweight.
The former two-division world champion Demetrius cannot afford to lose this fight because he’s up there in age at 35, and if he gets beaten by Benavidez, his options for paydays will be slim.
Staying at 168 could mean few opportunities for interesting fights, and if returns to 160, he would be going back to a division that is entirely barren of meaningful names.
You could tell from looking at the 26-year-old Benavidez that he’s going to have a massive size advantage on the night of the fight with Andrade on November 25th. What we don’t know is whether Benavidez will be drained from coming down from the 190s to 168.
David looks like a fighter who should be fighting at 175 against light heavyweights like Dmitry Bivol and Artur Beterbiev rather than melting down to 168 to fight smaller guys.
Benavidez vs. Andrade will be taking place at the Michelob ULTRA Arena at Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas.
The former two-time WBC super middleweight champion Benavidez agrees that this is the biggest fight of his seven-year professional career. Up until now, Benavidez’s best opponents have been Caleb Plant, Ronald Gavril, David Lemieux, Anthony Dirrell, and Ronald Ellis.
Brian Custer: “This is the fight where the winner takes on Canelo Alvarez,” said Brian to Showtime Boxing.
David Benavidez: “I’m not worried about Canelo Alvarez. I’m worried about Demetrius Andrade. This is the biggest fight of my career up to this date.
Demetrius Andrade: “F**k Canelo. This is it, this is bigger than, f**k Canelo. This is bigger than that; this is way bigger than that. This is a real fight.
“We’re not sitting here waiting for him. I’ve been telling people for a long time. We can’t be sitting here waiting for Canelo, Canelo, Canelo. Nah, David Benavidez vs. Demetrius Andrade is a great and a big fight.”
Canelo hasn’t named his next opponent yet, but it’s believed that he’s going to select Jermall Charlo if he wins his comeback fight on November 25th and looks good. Jermall could be fighting Jose Benavidez Jr. on the undercard of Benavidez-Andrade.
