{"id":312800,"date":"2025-11-27T19:50:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T19:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/312800\/"},"modified":"2025-11-27T19:50:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T19:50:07","slug":"roy-jones-jr-predicts-david-benavidez-vs-zurdo-ramirez-after-cruiserweight-title-fight-announced","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/312800\/","title":{"rendered":"Roy Jones Jr predicts David Benavidez vs Zurdo Ramirez after cruiserweight title fight announced"},"content":{"rendered":"

To the surprise of many, WBC light-heavyweight champion David Benavidez<\/a>, 31-0 (25 KOs), announced an ambitious next move after overpowering Anthony Yarde last weekend.<\/p>\n

The first defence of his world title was handled in straightforward but emphatic fashion, with the bulldozing Benavidez pummelling Yarde to a fourth career defeat.<\/a> The seventh-round stoppage underlined that the champion remains a ferocious force at 175lbs.<\/p>\n

However, in his post-fight interview, \u2018The Mexican Monster\u2019 revealed he would move up to cruiserweight to challenge unified world champion Gilberto \u2018Zurdo\u2019 Ramirez on May 2, 2026.<\/p>\n

Ramirez, 48-1 (30 KOs), strengthened his claim as the world\u2019s leading cruiserweight by beating Chris Billam-Smith in their 2024 unification, though he was far from his best last time out against veteran Yuniel Dorticos.<\/p>\n

The boxing world has already began to speculate over how a proposed Benavidez vs. Ramirez fight would go, and one man who has now offered his take on the showdown is boxing legend Roy Jones Jr<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Jones won world titles at middleweight, super-middleweight, light-heavyweight and heavyweight<\/a>, but a cruiserweight belt eluded him at a stage of his career when retirement should already have beckoned.<\/p>\n

In a recent interview with Boxing King Media<\/a>, the all-time great from Pensacola gave his view on who would prevail in the all-Mexican clash between Ramirez and Benavidez.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe [Benavidez] going to beat Zurdo. He wanted Zurdo a long time ago, and I think he going to beat Zurdo.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ramirez may return in January for a tune-up before facing Benavidez. The 34-year-old southpaw underwent shoulder surgery in July and is ready to return having made a full recovery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To the surprise of many, WBC light-heavyweight champion David Benavidez, 31-0 (25 KOs), announced an ambitious next move…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312801,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":["post-312800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312800\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}