Devin Haney has offered his take on David Benavidez possibly fighting Dmitry Bivol, explaining why their potential undisputed light-heavyweight clash could be a catastrophic mistake.
‘The Mexican Monster’ comes off a destructive sixth-round stoppage victory over Gilberto Ramirez, becoming a three-weight world champion in his first outing at 200lbs.
His dominant performance last month has therefore afforded him several options, one of which being a three-belt unification match at cruiserweight, where he currently holds the WBO and WBA titles.
It was announced last week that Benavidez has become the WBC mandatory challenger, piling pressure on champion Noel Mikaelian to either vacate his title or face the 29-year-old.
With Benavidez still holding the WBC title at 175lbs, though, he could instead move back down in weight and target a showdown with Bivol.
The unified champion successfully defended his belts against mandatory challenger Michael Eifert on Saturday, winning by a margin of 120-107 on all three judges’ scorecards.
When speaking with Ring Magazine about their potential fight, however, Haney strongly advised Benavidez to remain at cruiserweight.
“I don’t love that for him, because we’ve seen guys like Roy Jones [Jr] go up in weight and come back down, and they just aren’t the same.
“[Benavidez] was already killing himself to make the weight. I’ve seen him do the weight cuts; I think those weight cuts are brutal on him.
“We’ve seen the best of him [at cruiserweight]. He should stay up there.”
Interestingly, it does appear that Bivol is set to enter a rubber match with Artur Beterbiev later this year, with IBA promoter Umar Kremlev looking to stage their trilogy bout in Russia.
This would leave Benavidez targeting the WBC cruiserweight title, which is likely to become vacant if Mikaelian enters his expected encounter with Jai Opetaia.
Such an outcome could result in Benavidez facing the next available contender, so possibly Michal Cieslak, for the WBC, WBO and WBA titles.
