Diego Pacheco believes WBA regular light heavyweight champion David Morrell will be David Benavidez’s “toughest opponent” when they meet on February 1 in the main event at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Pacheco, a super middleweight who trains with Benavidez (29-0, 24 KOs), predicts he will wear down Morrell (11-0, 9 KOs) and come out on top. He compares Morrell to Caleb Plant, which is an odd comparison, and he sees Benavidez starting slow but then progressing.
The threat of body shots
If Benavidez gets hit as hard by Morrell as he was by Plant, he’ll be in trouble in this fight. Morrell’s power is very different from Plant’s and he will target his weak mid to shut him down.
Like all fighters, Benavidez has a weakness which is taking body shots. Morrell will likely zone in on his chunky late Elvis boy to score a body shot stop. That’s Benavidez’s kryptonite – taking hard shots to his breadbasket.
“David Morrell is a guy you can’t take lightly. He’s up there for a reason, and one of the best Cubans right now,” Diego Pacheco told Sean Zittel, talking about David Morrell, who faces WBC interim light heavyweight champion David Benavidez on February 1.
“I feel like David [Benavidez] is a monster. He won’t let anyone take that away from him. When he goes in there, he goes for the kill. Of course, I think Morrell will be his toughest opponent yet, but I still see David coming out on top. He [Morrell] has a good jab, he’s a really good fighter and he keeps a really good distance.
“I feel like he’s going to make it difficult for David in the early rounds. But as we saw with Caleb Plant, he did a good job of boxing in the first few rounds when he fought David. But David has the chip on his shoulder, where he comes in. Even in clinches he still lands punches.
Using Caleb Plant as his reason for why Benavidez wants to defeat Morrell doesn’t make much sense. Plant is a smaller, older fighter with no power, and he is a completely different fighter to the 27-year-old Morrell. Plant has never been a puncher and was knocked out by Canelo Alvarez. His style is different from Morrell’s.
“I feel like when you’re boxing a guy like David and he’s still coming forward no matter what you do, it makes it hard to keep the same game plan and stick to it. When you have a monster like him that throws big punches, throws punches in bunches, it’s tough,” Pacheco said.
Benavidez’s habit of going forward resulted in him eating a lot of head shots against Oleksandr Gvozdyk in their fight last year on June 15th. If Gvozdyk had targeted Benavidez’s body, instead of his block of cement head, he could have scored a stoppage.
When he finally went to Benavidez’s body in the 12th, he hurt him. Benavidez’s weak midsection and the way he leans back in a Fury-esque style leaves his body wide open. Pachecho raved about Benavidez’s ability to avoid getting hit in the head and said he leans.
True, but he leaves his midsection unprotected, which is the area where he is weak. He may not be able to handle Morrell’s punches to the body or head because he hits harder than anyone he has faced before and is an excellent counter puncher.
“His defense is crazy. He stands so straight. He’s really good at retreating when hit. Every camp he gets better. He’s learning,” Pacheco said.
Formerly-his-primary opponents
Benavidez’s defense isn’t great. If you watched his last two fights against Oleksandr Gvozdyk and Demetrius Andrade, he just went forward Robocop-style, blocking shots with his head and overworking the two older fighters. Gvozdyk is 37 and Andrade 36.
Neither guy is anywhere near what they once were ten years ago. It would be the same if Benavidez was on the wrong side of 30 going up against a younger fighter. He wasn’t going to do well.
