Gilberto Ramirez Sanchez vs. Anthony David Benavidez & José Armando Reséndiz vs. Jaime Munguia RBR.

Depends on who Zuffa sign for him.

Glanton was decent ish.CBS is ok aswell.

 

His high guard is very well developed and he’s able to tuck in to catch shots round the side of the body. Just look at how ineffective Canelo was in landing his looping hooks round the side (like Benavidez throws). But he also relies on his feet to get him out of range of straight body shots, like Lonachenko used to do - another solely high guard utiliser.

The fight is very interesting though, because the 2 fighters represent the 2 best high guards in the division, possibly the entire sport, and the 2 best combination punchers in the division. Outside that, it is creative offense vs flawless technique and footwork.

I’d expect Bivol to be a bit too well schooled and slick, and would win a 9-3/8-4 type decision by sweeping the first 6 rounds and coming back in the championship rounds. Remember, David’s best moments offensively come from him being up close. Bivol isn’t going to let him get there without some real resistance. He’ll be able to take advantage of David’s habit of punching mid step and time his counters to cause maximum disruption.

 

Your post lost all credibility when you said that Opetaia “benefits” from the narrative that he is being ducked.

His bank account would suggest otherwise.

 

Momentarily stupid, perhaps.

But he’s got to make bank somehow.

 

I don't disagree with your assessment of Bivol. However, this is the entertainment business. At some point, Bivol will have to exchange. He can't simply move. So, the question becomes when he does exchange with DB, can he avoid getting caught while scoring effectively. The one thing about Bivol that is not mentioned is his accuracy is poor. He throws a lot of punches when he exchanges but he lands fewer than most fighters. Go back and look at his fight with Canelo. Yes, he clearly outpointed Canelo but he never hurt him and was missing the target a lot.

 

If a fight can’t be made for whatever reason, it helps your reputation to say your opponent is ducking you and to apply pressure to get the fight made. It’s not a hard concept to understand. I do think some champions avoided him, but like I said before. why hasn’t he fought other highly ranked contenders across the different sanctioning bodies? Champions might be comfortable holding their belts, but most contenders would jump at the chance to fight for a title. And you still haven’t explained why Opetaia is supposedly better than Bivol. Do wins over Thompson, Zorro, Glanton, Cinkara, and Squeo secure him as an ATG or a p4p top 10 fighter?

 

Craig Richards went 8-4 with Bivol. Bivol has great movement but its not a magic power where he can avoid getting touched up completely, and he has never fought anyone with David's combination of speed , accuracy , power and dynamism. I think he would break down Bivol to the body and slow him down and then bust him up. He sparred Bivol a lot when he was a kid and had the better of him already. This has been reported by multiple people over the years. Ignore high level sparring at your peril. They don't play in there. David knows exactly how to beat Bivol.

 

Sparring is sparring, and I’ve heard it reported by one person. And that’s David himself. Just like I’ve heard that Usyk, AJ, Dubois, Fury, Hrgovic, Parker et al got turned over in sparring by Martin Bakole. Both Martin AND Billy Nelson said so . Also, you said David and Bivol sparred when David was “a kid”. Both of them have progressed and advanced since then. It wouldn’t even be the same in sparring now, never mind a real fight.

Bivol is content to coast to decisions. We know this. Taking his foot off the gas a bit against Richards in a fight (in the UK I might add) does not equate to that fight being remotely close in reality, and it was years ago. So it’s basically a moot point. But if we want to talk about who took how many rounds off who, David went 7-5 with Gvozdyk, and he went 7-5/8-4 with Caleb Plant. Both were fights where he had a size or a notable youth advantage.

I agree, David presents a unique skill set and attributes, but whilst his hands are fast, his feet are not. One of the keys to Beterbiev’s success wasn’t his power or creative offense, but his aggressive footwork that in turn allowed him to get close. Beterbiev’s footwork is leagues ahead of David’s. If he closed the gap against Bivol, yes, I can see him causing some issues, but I don’t think he’ll have an easy time of that for the first 6 rounds at least, and by that time, Bivol will have banked rounds and won’t have slowed down all that much. Even if I’m wrong and the sparring stories are true, and both fighters have completely stagnated since then and have the exact skill set and attributes, Bivol and Gennady have time to reflect and game plan on how to overcome those challenges. Each fighter has a good bank of tape to study, and David makes more mistakes than Bivol.

This is all speculative, though. The fight isn’t signed, and we don’t know if Bivol is the same fighter post surgery. We also don’t know if David will have trouble getting back down to 175 (as much as he probably won’t. He was soft at 175 anyway).

 

I have heard multiple journalists and pro fighters talk about their sparring and David having the upper hand. Listen to pro fighters talk about sparring and watch actual sparring footage and you will understand sparring is not just sparring. They are usually real fights with head gear and bigger gloves. People get hurt and knocked out in sparring. In terms of progress, Bivol was basically in his prime age when he sparred David so Benavidez had more room to improve.

Bivol definitely has the style to beat David. Plant showed the blue print, which was run and box around a 22 foot ring, but David has also improved since that fight and I expect them to fight in a smaller ring.

 

Your observations are intelligent. Regarding Opetaia I think he's currently the best cruiserweight around, but Bivol certainly has a more solid legacy than the Australian, and we're talking about number 6 in Ring Magazine's P4P rankings.

P.S. Fanboys are just a waste of time, they're not objective and only want to glorify their idols. Furthermore they often have no respect for anyone who disagrees with their own opinion, or even for other fighters. It's not worth it.

 

Bivol and David sparred in front of multiple journalists and pro-fighters? I’m guessing not. The multiple “sources” will be heresay. And yes, some pro fighters will inevitably treat sparring like a real fight, but Bivol has said openly that him and David had some good sparring where Bivol was working on specific things for a specific fight. He has no reason to lie, and he is one of only 2 people who have first hand experience of said sparring. He is a more reliable source than a witness or a journalist.

Yes, Plant was disengaging and surviving for the last few rounds in their fight, but that was it. To say the blueprint to beat David is to “run and box” lacks any critical thought. When has Bivol ever ran? He’s a mid range specialist with quick feet who circles in order to reset away from the ropes. That isn’t running. It’s standard behaviour. I swear people who accuse a fighter of running would just as quickly call the same fighter out for having a low IQ if they did the opposite, and planted their feet in the corner against a powerful boxer puncher and got pieced up.

By the same token, we’ve seen the blueprint of how to beat Bivol. Quick aggressive foot pressure to cut off the ring, 75+ punches per round, and elite power. Benavidez can only satisfy one of those based on what we’ve seen of him.

 

I'm guessing you are in denial and have no idea what you are talking about, and yes they did spar in front of an audience multiple times.

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Enjoy.

He has no reason to lie? Of course he does. To protect himself. He will not admit David got the better of him.

He did a lot of running against Beterbiev especially in the first fight.

 

That video is just a man saying “David made Bivol uncomfortable in sparring”. Unless I’m missing the bit where he says “Bivol came to spar, and we had loads of people in the audience watching, and David got the better of Bivol, and Bivol left with his tail between his legs”. Could you time stamp that for me?

And yes, okay, you might not want to admit what happens in sparring where it doesn’t go your way, but it’s commonly accepted that sparring stays in sparring, because it is 2 people training for a mutual benefit. But Bivol has never shied away from being honest in the media. He openly said he thought the judges got the first Beterbiev decision right (who else would say that about one of their own close fights?) and also, he is the man at 175. He doesn’t need to make himself look any better than he already is.

And as I said, circling away from the ropes against a hard-hitting pressure fighter isn’t “running”. I really don’t get why people are so against intelligent movement. Yes, he wasn’t in the pocket against Beterbiev, but that’s because anyone who had done that previously (whether purposefully or because they don’t have Bivol’s level of footspeed) had got stopped.

Perhaps Power Slap might be more your bag?

 

Ah you needed everything explicit and were not able to work out what he was inferring when he said ' We all saw what happened'? You don't know there is a sort of a code where people try and avoid talking about what happens in sparring in detail? What I showed was a pro fighter and journalist watched the sparring and they sparred many times. You denied it and I Gave you evidence then you still deny. Like I said you don't want the truth.

Bivol is not a runner like Shakur but he does run quite a bit. If you are spending large parts of rounds and fights circling that is basically running.

 

I literally said in my reply that it is commonly understood that sparring stays in sparring. So yes, I am aware that details can be omitted, but showing me a video of one (not impartial) man saying “we all saw what happened” is not the same as providing evidence substantiating the narrative that David beat Bivol up in sparring. I’m not sure why you can’t accept that.

Which is it? If you think circling is running and that Bivol does a lot of it, but that he isn’t a runner on the whole, you haven’t got your own consistent criteria by which to argue your point.

And you can’t call Shakur a runner after watching the Zepeda and Teo fights. Doing so makes you look like a bit of a casual. Which I’m sure you’re not, being on a boxing forum.