Tim Bradley has assessed David Benavidez’s chances of defeating Oleksandr Usyk, who still holds three of the four major titles at heavyweight.
The Ukrainian returns to action at Egypt’s Pyramids of Giza this Saturday, making a voluntary defence of his WBC strap against Dutch kickboxer Rico Verhoeven.
Beyond this next outing, Usyk will likely be ordered to face WBC ‘interim’ champion Agit Kabayel, who is set to earn his shot at the full green and gold belt later this year.
Alternatively, though, the 39-year-old could vacate his world title, perhaps with a view to square off against newly-crowned unified champion Benavidez instead – a fight that has been backed by boxing powerbroker, Turki Alalshikh.
‘The Mexican Monster’ became a three-division world champion earlier this month, dethroning Gilberto Ramirez with a sixth-round finish in his first outing at 200lbs.
Yet despite his dominant performance, the reality is that Benavidez is not yet even a fully-fledged cruiserweight, with the 29-year-old admitting to weighing just 202lbs on fight night.
Because of this, he is likely to drop back down to 175lbs – where he still holds the WBC title – in a bid to face Dmitry Bivol for the undisputed crown.
As far as Hall of Famer Bradley is concerned, this represents the most sensible option for Benavidez, having effectively said on his YouTube channel that the American has no chance at toppling Usyk.
“Usyk? Stop it. It’s okay to have dreams – it’s fine, you can dream – [but] if you feel that David Benavidez can beat Usyk, I will gladly take your money.”
While Benavidez has always expressed an interest in moving up to heavyweight, it would appear that unified light-heavyweight champion Bivol is currently his main target.
First, Bivol must defeat mandatory challenger Michael Eifert on May 30, but would surely be eager for a shot at becoming a two-time undisputed champion later this year.
