Diego Pacheco believes WBA regular light heavyweight champion David Morrell will be David Benavidez’s”toughest opponent” when they meet on February 1st in the main event at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Pacheco, a super middleweight contender who trains with Benavidez (29-0, 24 KOs), predicts he’ll 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 coming on.
The Body Shot Threat
If Benavidez gets hit as much by Morrell as he did by Plant, he will be in trouble in this fight. The power of Morrell is way different than Plant’s, and he’ll target his weak midsection 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 gut to score a body shot stoppage. That’s Benavidez’s kryptonite – taking hard shots to his breadbasket.
“David Morrell is a guy that you can’t take lightly. He’s up there for a reason, and one of the best Cubans right now,” said Diego Pacheco to Sean Zittel, talking about David Morrell, who faces WBC interim light heavyweight champion David Benavidez on February 1st.
“I feel like David [Benavidez] is a monster. He doesn’t let anyone take it from him. When he goes in there, he’s going for the kill. Of course, I think Morrell is going to 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 his distance really well.
“I feel like he’s going to make it hard for David in the early rounds. But like we saw with Caleb Plant, he was doing a good job of boxing in the first few rounds when he fought David. But David has the chip on his shoulder where he’s coming forward. Even in the clinches, he’s still getting punches in.
Using Caleb Plant as his reason for why Benavidez will defeat Morrell doesn’t make much sense. Plant is a smaller, older fighter with no power, and he’s an entirely different fighter than the 27-year-old Morrell. Plant has never been a puncher and was knocked out by Canelo Alvarez. His style is different than Morrell’s.
“I feel 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 that same game plan and stick to it. When you have a monster like him, throwing big punches, throwing punches in bunches, it’s hard,” said Pacheco.
That habit of Benavidez walking forward resulted in him eating a lot of headshots 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 might scored a stoppage.
When he did finally go 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 to the head, saying he leans.
That’s true, but he leaves his midsection unprotected, which is the one area where he’s weak. He might not be able to handle Morrell’s punches to the body or the head because he hits harder than anyone he’s faced before and is an excellent counter-puncher.
“His defense is crazy. He stands so straight. He’s really good at pulling back at punches. Every camp, he’s getting better. He’s learning,” said Pacheco.
Past-His-Prime Opponents
Benavidez’s defense is not great. If you watched his last two fights against Oleksandr Gvozdyk and Demetrius Andrade, he was just walking forward Robocop style, blocking shots with his head, outworking those two older fighters. Gvozdyk is 37 and Andrade 36.
Neither guy is anywhere near what they once were a decade ago. It would be the same thing if Benavidez were on the wrong side of 30, going up against a younger fighter. He wouldn’t do well.
