Benavidez vs Bivol

I think David gets underrated in these matchups. I expect him to give Bivol a good fight.

 

He definitely has better skills. He's very well schooled, has an excellent punch arsenal, punch picking and placement. Power in both hands, good body puncher, has a nasty left hook, size, range, very solid chin. Hutchinson has better skills than Buatsi too.

I found almost all of the fights on that card very difficult to predict other than Shakur vs Padley. The ones I was most confident about were Smith vs Buatsi and Kabayel vs Big Bang. I picked Kabayel via stoppage but I also noted that it was a fight Big Bang could win via KO at any time due to his murderous power and huge size advantage.

I picked Smith via stoppage but I was unsure how much the Beterbiev loss had taken out of him. I said if it hadn't taken too much out of him he should stop Buatsi and the only reason he didn't is because unbeknownst to us Buatsi proved to have an iron chin. Not to say I thought he had a weak one prior to that but I didn't know it was that good. It was an excellent fight but Smith really beat the crap out of him in a number of those rounds and he did the better work throughout.

I do think Smith has lost a step. I think his accuracy was a bit off with the right uppercut to the head against Buatsi and the left hook some of the time too.

No I would favour Benavidez in that one for sure. At his best Smith has the skills, punch selection, punch variety and power to cause him problems though and if he could penetrate that defence he could hurt him too, especially if he believes in himself.

 

I think Bivol has a very good chin and, as said, he's a smallish LHW who is fighting bigger, much bigger or way bigger men and it's proven against world and elite class bigger men. I don't think Benavidez is chinny but he was absolutely huge for 168 and he is at 175 too and his best wins at 168 came against blown up MWs in Boo Boo and a completely washed Lemieux. Plant is a natural 168 but he's really not that good.

Gvozdyk was the same size as Benavidez but, again, he was nowhere near his best anymore and whilst he's a big puncher he wasn't even sitting down on his shots or punching with close to full power. His hunger has gone and he showed up to collect a paycheck

Yes, Benavidez weighed 196 vs Morrell. I don't know how much Morrell weighed but I know he weighed 190 in his previous fight against Hot Rod

I think we will definitely see him up at CW

 

We know that generally speaking, like Brits, Mexicans, Koreans etc. Ghanaians have great or above average punch resistance but Buatsi had never really demonstrated that level of iron before.

Maybe Smith's punch power at 175 is not quite the same as it was at 168 albeit he did score two HL reel KOs in his first fights at the weight. However, even if it isn't, and I'm not sure if it is or it isn't, he still hits hard and he caught Buatsi so often and so cleanly we cannot but be anything other than very impressed by Buatsi's mandibular fortitude.

 

Yes, he's really a larger sized SMW