Trainer Bob Santos says David Morrell Jr’s amateur pedigree in Cuba makes him more than ready to face ten-year pro David Benavidez (28-0, 24 KOs) next.
Santos points out that Morrell Jr’s long amateur career, facing high-level opposition, has given him better experience than professionals with 20+ fights, but against weaker opponents.
The amateur pedigree that Morrell has puts him ahead of Benavidez, with 28 fights, with virtually all of them coming against C-level opposition.
Morrell Jr’s amateur experience puts him ahead of Benavidez
The 25-year-old Cuban prodigy Morrell wants Benavidez next after blasting through Sena Agbeko in two rounds last Saturday night on Showtime’s final boxing broadcast after 37 years.
It took Benavidez ten years to get to the point where he’s fighting gatekeepers Caleb Plant & Demetrius Andrade, and they’re not even the talented guys at 168. Before fighting Plant & the washed 35-year-old Andrade, Benavidez’s ten fights were against these lower-level bunch:
David Lemieux
Kyrone Davis
Ronald Ellis
Roamer Alexis Angulo
Anthony Dirrell
J’Leon Love
Ronald Gavril
Rogelio Medina
Sherali Mamajonov
Denis Douglin
Benavidez is now just looking for a payday against Canelo after spending most of his career fighting Ham and Eggers. The fact is, Benavidez hasn’t proven himself worthy of a fight with Canelo and needs to show that he deserves to share the ring with him by facing the Cuban crush, David Morrell.
While Benavidez has twice as many fights as Morrell, his wins have come against largely lesser fighters with limited ability and didn’t do much to improve him.
That’s the problem with professionals. Many of the fighters face lower-level opposition for five to eight years before they start facing quality guys.
The 27-year-old Benavidez is an extreme version of that. He’s only now started facing decent opposition in his tenth year in the professional ranks.
“Not really, because you got to remember that he has a tremendous amateur pedigree,” said trainer Bob Santos to Fighthype when asked if it’s unfair for David Morrell Jr., with his professional experience limited to ten fights, to take on ten-year pro David Benavidez, who has fought 28 times during his career.
“You got to look at, case in point, a lot of these guys when they have 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 fights, like Canelo’s first 20 fights, which was done in Mexico.”
When a fighter is competing against the best in the amateur ranks, it counts for a lot more than a guy who is being fed tomato cans at the pro level to create a fake record, as we see with the vast majority of Benavidez’s 28 pro wins.
The so-called ‘Mexican Monster’ Benavidez’s only two victories of substance were against the gatekeepers Plant and Andrade. Everything else on Benavidez’s resume was fluff wins against guys like Lemieux, Angulo, and Love.
Pro experience against weak opposition = worthless
“You’re getting experience, and you don’t want to take nothing away from that, but the experience is very, very important, but against limited opposition, those guys are getting experience,” said Santos.
“You got to remember that he fought for the WBA [‘regular’ super middleweight] world title in his third pro fight,” Santos said about David Morrell Jr. “So the level of competition, he’s been thrown in with right out of the gate.”
In Morrell’s third fight as a professional in his second year as a pro, he defeated Lennox Allen, a fighter with a 22-0 record to capture the WBA interim super middleweight title.
“Then you talk about the Uzbekistanian [Aidos Yerbossynuly], who was undefeated and was in camp with Canelo,” said Santos about Morrell Jr’s fight against Kazahstanian Aidos Yerbossynuly (16-1, 11 KOs), who he stopped in the twelfth round last year in November.
“So, if you look at it from that perspective, maybe he [Morrell] didn’t have the 15 fights that right now he’d be 25-0 with limited opposition. He jumped right into the fire, and he proved every single time to come out on top. Not just with basic performances, but dominant performances,” said Santos about Morrell.
