Can Benavidez withstand Morel’s power?
Dan Rafael believes WBC interim super middleweight champion David Benavidez has the edge in his fight against WBA ‘regular’ champion David Morrell on February 1.
Journalist Rafael Benavidez (29-0, 24 KOs) feels he has the better chin and punching power of Cuba Morel (11-0, 9 KOs) in this bout, which will be shown live on PBC on Prime Video PPV. From the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Cause of experience
“I was close to Benavidez. I’m not talking about race because David Morrell has that deep amateur background from the Cuban system,” Dan Rafael said. Boxing Social About David Benavidez and David Morrell fight on February 1st
David Morrell had very few fights due to his late start, but both are in prime athletic form for their age. He left Cuba, and moved very quickly in the early days of his career. But he didn’t have to do 1,000 fights because that was all amateur experience, while Benavidez turned pro at 17 years old. He was more of a work in progress to get to this point.
When you look at the records, when you see a guy with less than 15 fights and a guy with 30, you’re thinking that guy is much older and has more experience. That is not the case. Both are very close in age and experience, with Morel doing it as an amateur while Benavidez has more experience.
Morel has more experience in the sport than Benavidez, who has gone 148 rounds as a professional in his 12-year career.
Morel has 54 rounds, but he was 130-2 as an amateur in Cuba and Benavidez has total rounds against better opponents than he fought as a professional. Benavidez has fought limited fighters, mostly older ones like Jivozdyk, Demetrius Andrade, 36, David Lemieux and Caleb Plant.
Chin and power
“I’m going to lean towards Benavidez because the combination of his chin and power might be a little better than Morel,” Rafael said.
Morel, 26, is the youngest fighter in a little over a year and has never been injured before. It’s hard to say for sure whether Benavidez has a better chin or not with Morel intact. Power wise, Morel is by far the best puncher. And Raphael is on that.
Benavidez is a sound puncher who throws a lot of slap arm shots. All 24 of the Mexican monster’s knockouts came when he wrestled under his natural weight class at 168 and had a huge advantage over his opponents.
When he moved up to 175 in his last fight as a professional 11 years later, his power wasn’t the same, and he never threatened to knock out opponent Oleksandr Gvozdyk on June 15 of last year.
“I have no evidence of that because it’s not like Morel was hit or hit or badly hurt. I kind of feel like in a firefight, the guy who could do a little better would be Benavidez. But we will see. That’s why it’s a 50-50-ish kind of fight,” Raphael said.
