After David Benavidez dethroned Gilberto Ramirez last month, Roy Jones Jr called for him to step up to heavyweight and face Oleksandr Usyk.
Now, having witnessed Usyk underwhelm against Rico Verhoeven, Jones has provided an updated opinion on a potential Usyk-Benavidez showdown.
Benavidez became a three-division world champion when he moved up to the 200lb division and beat down Ramirez to capture the WBA and WBO cruiserweight world titles. Soon after, he was linked to a return to light-heavyweight to face Dmitry Bivol or a potential defence of his new belts against cruiserweight standout, Jai Opetaia.
However, Jones declared that Benavidez should venture further up in weight and pursue a clash with undefeated heavyweight ruler, Usyk, believing that ‘The Mexican Monster’ could capture the 39-year-old legend at the right time and make history.
Following Usyk’s close shave with Verhoeven, three weeks on from Benavidez’s triumph, Jones beamed smugly in an interview with FightHype, believing that his suggestion has aged extraordinarily well.
“Did that [Usyk performance] not make me look like a genius? Wasn’t that the right fight? Imagine if that would have been David Benavidez on that night, Usyk would have had his first loss.
“That is the only fight for David Benavidez right now. Anybody else is a waste of time. You have got a chance to go up and try to make history again, doing something that you kind of want to do anyway. You could be the first to beat him and you would make history.”
Although, whilst confident that Benavidez should demand a shot at Usyk, ‘Captain Hook’ refused to predict a victory in a potential challenge for the Ukrainian’s belts. Instead, Jones outlined how he imagines Benavidez could dethrone the reigning heavyweight champion.
“It is a tough call because don’t get me wrong, Usyk ain’t no garbage, he is a great fighter, but this guy [Verhoeven] showed that if you disrupt things and make it uncomfortable for Usyk, you can make it a different style of fight – and I always knew that too.
“Those guys, like [Vasyl] Lomachenko, in that second fight, he [Orlando Salido] gave ‘Loma’ the business and if I was ever going to fight Usyk, that is how I would have fought Usyk. I ain’t gonna box him, I am going to make it ugly because they don’t want to fight like that. This guy [Verhoeven], what he do? He made it ugly, they are not good at fighting like that.
“That style ain’t for no ugly fight, that style is for a boxing match, that is what they are used to growing up, but over here in pro boxing, you have got to be able to do it all.”
