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David Benavidez is hearing a lot of names mentioned for Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez’s planned 2022 campaign.
The one name he has yet to hear is his own—which is puzzling since Benavidez is on the short list of fighters who is actually owed a title fight if the sanctioning body rules were properly enforced.
Instead, Mexico’s Alvarez (57-1-2, 39KOs) aims to become a two-time light heavyweight titlist in his challenge of WBA 175-pound claimant Dmitry Bivol (19-0, 11KOs). Fight week in Las Vegas has been spent discussing the possibility of revisiting previous talks of fighting at cruiserweight, and even the hypothetical scenario of meeting WBA/IBF/WBO heavyweight titlist Oleksandr Usyk at a maximum weight of 201 pounds should the Ukrainian southpaw get past Anthony Joshua in their rematch later this summer.
The hope is that, at some point, Alvarez will acknowledge the May 21 clash between Phoenix’s Benavidez—now based out of Washington state and who trains out of San Diego—and Montreal’s David Lemieux for the interim WBC super middleweight title. The fight is significant in that Alvarez will eventually have to face the winner if he wants to keep his undisputed championship reign intact.
“The thing with Canelo, I don’t know what’s going on and I can’t worry about it,” Benavidez told BoxingScene.com. “After this fight, once I win the [interim WBC super middleweight] belt I’m supposed to be the mandatory. I’m just gonna think about May 21. But now he’s talking about fighting at cruiserweight, he wants to fight at 175. He even told Eddie Hearn that he’d fight Usyk at 201 pounds.
“It’s kind of crazy. I don’t know what’s going on. But the way I view it, a champion has to defend his championships. If I win the interim title, I’m number one in line. If he doesn’t want to fight me, he’ll have to let go of that belt and let me fight for it. I’d rather fight Canelo for it. Right now, my main focus is winning championships.”
Benavidez (25-0, 22KOs) has entered 2022 with the mission of becoming a three-time WBC super middleweight titlist. His previous two reigns ended outside the ring, first for testing positive for cocaine during a random drug test through the WBC Clean Boxing Program in 2018. Benavidez regained his old belt with a ninth-round stoppage of Anthony Dirrell in September 2019, only to lose the belt at the scales ahead of an August 2020 tenth-round stoppage of Alexis Angulo.
Two wins have followed, with Benavidez positioning himself back at the top of the WBC super middleweight rankings. Alvarez unified all four major titles in the span of four fights, outpointing Callum Smith for the WBA “Super” and vacant WBC title in December 2020, stopping Billy Joe Saunders after eight rounds to win the WBO belt last May and then claimed the IBF strap following an eleventh-round knockout of Caleb Plant last November.
Benavidez’s promoter Sampson Lewkowicz flew to Mexico City days after Alvarez-Plant, to attend the annual WBC convention where he hoped to enforce his fighter’s mandatory title status. Alvarez’s trainer/manager Eddy Reynoso was first to the floor, however, and successfully lobbied for Alvarez to receive permission to challenge WBC cruiserweight titlist Ilunga ‘Junior’ Makabu. Lewkowicz was granted a consolation prize, with the WBC agreeing to make available an interim title for Benavidez-Lemieux.
The fight with Makabu never transpired, with Alvarez instead agreeing to a multi-fight deal with Matchroom Boxing and DAZN Pay-Per-View beginning with Saturday’s fight with Bivol at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. With a win, Alvarez has already acknowledged plans for a trilogy bout with Gennadiy Golovkin (42-1-1, 37KOs), putting his undisputed super middleweight championship at stake for a targeted September 17 date likely in Vegas or Texas.
A repeat win over Golovkin should theoretically free up Alvarez for a fight with Benavidez or any of his other mandatory title defenses with the WBO and WBA. Instead, it will likely be kept in house with Matchroom and DAZN.
Benavidez will do his part to use it as motivation. His fight with Lemieux is the second straight in his home region, airing live on Showtime from Gila River Arena in Glendale, Arizona. The event is roughly 30 minutes from Phoenix, where Benavidez headlined in a seventh-round stoppage of Kyrone Davis last November on Showtime in front of a sizable and rabid crowd at Footprint Center, home to the NBA’s Phoenix Suns.
With a win on May 21, Benavidez will continue to wait his turn for a shot at Alvarez but not wasting any more time in allowing other opportunities to fall through in the interim.
“Of course, everyone wants to fight Canelo. But if he doesn’t want to fight me, I’ve gotta write my own history,” notes Benavidez. “I got to beat all the guys at PBC and then one day if we can make the fight happen, it will happen. I’m just ready to fight whoever and whenever. I don’t know what’s going on. There are a lot of unanswered questions.
“I don’t know what the game plan is. They say they want to do things like fight at cruiserweight, then they do this. Now we’re hearing he might fight John Ryder, another 168-pounder in December. That doesn’t make any sense. But Canelo is at that stage where he calls the shots and just fights whoever he wants and we all just have to accept that fact. Whatever happens, I’ll be right here. I’ll be waiting, I’ll be ready whenever that fight happens.”
Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox