Is David Benavidez overrated?

He's an excellent fighter with blazing hand speed, natural fighting instincts, great shot selection, placement and variety, a tight defence, solid chin, a spiteful puncher, with a very good engine, and he put his shots together as well as anyone in the sport but his resume is weak and he was absolutely massive for 168 and even when he moved up to 175 he was a massive for that weight too rehydrating up to 189 for his official LHW debut and 196 for his 2nd fight at the weight which is the 2nd heaviest fight night weight for a LHW I've ever heard of

To add some context look at 3 of the best LHWs in recent years

Career LHW Bivol weighed 183 vs Clenelo and his fight night weights range from 180 to 184

Kovalev was coming in the the mid 180s, 181 at his lowest, and even at his absolute heaviest weighed 189

Beterbiev's fight night weights haven't been announced but he's not as big as many think and I suspect he's coming in in the late 180s maybe 190-191 max sometimes

And the likes of Boo Boo and Lemieux were career 154-160 pounders who had no business being in the ring with a natural 175 pounder and a very big one at that and Lemieux was washed and Boo Boo had only fought at 168 once, against a D level

Plant is C level with a soft chin and even softer resume

Dirrell was old and C level even in his prime

Then we have the likes of Gvozdyk, Morrell, and Yarde at LHW. Gvozdyk was old and well past his prime and was throwing pity pats,
Morrell just got KO'd by a domestic level, lost his previous fight to Khataev in all bar the judge's eyes, and arguably lost or fought to a draw vs Hot Rod in his previous fight at 175 prior to facing Benavidez


Yarde's claim to fame is having 1 big round vs a well past his best Kovalev before getting slept out cold from a jab, giving Beterbiev a tough fight for a few rounds before getting brutalized and knocked silly, going 2-1 vs Lymdon Arthur with the rubber match being very close, and going life and death with one of the many padded record cherrypicked Euro and South American bums he forged an entire career fighting in between his completely undeserved world title fights

And Zurdo who was actually bigger than Benavidez. That was an excellent win and performance to not only dominate Zurdo but to stop him. Zurdo might have won the CW title off of a terribly inactive Goulamirian who has only fought once in like 4 years and 3 months

Won his other one off of CBS who whilst tough, game, underrated for a long time by many, and a good puncher is a real overachiever and lacking in the skills department

And going life and death in his previous fight to facing Benavidez vs a 39 y/o well past prime Dorticos who hasn't fought anyone with a pulse in 5 years and had oy fought x 3 in all that time all early blow outs of certified bums

That being said, Zurdo had never previously displayed any signs of not being durable or not being able to take a pop on the whiskers albeit he was, like Benavidez, massive for 168 and 175 and he himself has the highest fight night weight for LHW I've ever heard of, so it was very impressive the fashion in which Benavidez dealt with him, especially being the smaller man for once and it being his CW debut

I heard a stat the other day that Benavidez has only ever made 2 defences of a world title in his career

And he won his world titles vs Gavril and he arguably lost that fight, Morrell (elevated to full champ sometime after beating him IIRC), and Zurdo and all in his home country too and even though Bivol is the three-belt unified king at 175 Benavidez has even just recently expressed reluctance to fight Bivol in neutral Saudi and said he's in the driver's seat and Bivol needs to fight him in the US. That's some real female dog poop and extremely unbecoming of a Mexican warrior. I really don't like that

I'll have to check but I think Gavril, Lemieux, Morrell, Gvozdyk, and Zurdo all fought him, as they and only they do for world title fights between a home and away fighter, in the US with a home ref and 3 home judges so why the beep can't he travel to face the much smaller road warrior Bivol on neutral soil?

To summarize. I think he's a very talented and excellent fighter, a P4P top 10 type of talent, has earned a spot in the top 10 with his victory over Zurdo and if he is top 5 you'd have to remove either Shakur or Bam-Rod to find a place for him there, and many in the lower half of the top 10 are there by default at the moment. However, his resume is weak and when you factor in the context of size and how big he was for 168 and 175, home advantage, it looks even less impressive

But I do give him a good or very good shot of beating Bivol and this 41 y/o Beterbiev who will probably be 42 or very close to if they do ever fight each other and Benavidez might be the best current US fighter and one of the few ones who can actually fight

 

Also, people are praising Benavidez to high heaven for beating the bigger Zurdo at CW but the size difference between Zurdo and Bivol is bigger. Benavidez Sr. said he expected David to come in around 210lbs for the Zurdo fight. I don't know if he actually did that or not but either way Zurdo was way bigger than Bivol too even though Bivol was fighting in his first and only weight class

We have to stop playing this silly little game where we pretend like massive weight bullies becoming multiple weight champions is near as impressive as ones who are actually fighting bigger, much or way bigger fighters when they move up in weight.

For example, we have the likes of Haney being a three-weight champion, top 10 P4P, but he's literally never beaten anyone close to his size and has regularly been trying to unsettle his opponents at 135, 140 and 147 by telling them they're ''too small'' despite Rougarou and Norman being career 140 and 147 pounders respectively and it being his debut at those weights.

Norman weighed 159 vs Sasaki, Haney weighed 165 at 140 for his debut at that weight vs Rougarou and he was clearly even bigger up at 147 so he would've been much bigger than Norman too despite Norman being a career 147

 

I think Bivol poses stylistic problems for him but, as said, Benavidez is way bigger than him, the fight will likely be in the US with home refs and judges unless Benavidez grows a pair and agrees to fight him in neutral Saudi, Bivol is getting up in age now and Benavidez is a lot younger and fresher, and we haven't seen what this post-back injury Bivol will look like