By Dan Ambrose: WBA ‘regular’ super middleweight champion David Morrell Jr. will be headlining on December 16th against an opponent still to be determined on Showtime at The Armory in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
According to Keith Idec of Boxing Scene, this will be Showtime’s final broadcast of the sport on December 16th.
Morrell has Hollywood movie star looks and the same charm that Sugar Ray Leonard had during his career. He’s got potential superstardom written all over him. He just needs to break through to land a fight with Canelo or a less popular guy like Benavidez, who doesn’t appear willing to oblige him.
Morrell (9-0, 8 KOs) recently called out David Benavidez, but he and his dad, Jose Sr., didn’t want it. Many fans believe Benavidez got cold feet after watching what Morrell did to his last two opponents Yamaguchi Falcão and Aidos Yerbossynuly.
The way that Morrell defeated those two guys, he would give Benavidez massive problems and likely defeat him, catapulting himself into position immediately to get a fight with Canelo.
Ideal options for Morrell
Caleb Plant
Dmitry Bivol
Janibek Alimkhanuly
Richard Rivera
Diego Pacheco
Edgar Berlanga
Ali Akhemdov
Kevin Sadjo
Bektemir Melikuziev
Before those two fights, Benavidez had been talking up the idea of mixing it up with Morrell, but he quiet after he destroyed both guys.
Now, instead of accepting the challenge from Morrell, Benavidez is fighting 35-year-old Demetrius Andrade and likely hoping that his age has softened the former two-division world champion enough to where he can safely beat him and not eliminate him from winning the Canelo sweepstakes.
There’s no word yet who Morrell could be fighting on December 16th, but there are a lot of potential candidates out there who will be willing to get the publicity of being seen on Showtime’s last broadcast.
The December 9th Showtime PPV card, with Keith Thurman vs. Eimantis Staminions & Danny Garcia vs. Erislandy Lara, will not be happening, which makes sense. It would have been a crazy idea for that card to compete with the Devin Haney vs. Regis Prograis event on the same night on DAZN PPV.
There had been talk of Floyd Mayweather Jr. doing one of his factory-like exhibition matches on the rumored December 9 Showtime PPV card, but that wouldn’t have made a difference.
Fans don’t want to see exhibition matches on pay-per-view. It’s a good thing that Showtime scrapped that plan of going on December 9th because that would have been a disaster.
David Morrell Jr., who has called Minneapolis home since he came to the U.S. from Cuba, will headline Showtime's final boxing broadcast 12/16 from The Armory in downtown Minneapolis. PBC is in the process of solidifying an opponent for the undefeated super middleweight. https://t.co/Q0d2LkxhjT
— Keith Idec (@Idecboxing) November 1, 2023