{"id":475445,"date":"2026-02-12T16:43:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T16:43:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/475445\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T16:43:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T16:43:09","slug":"benavidez-plans-return-to-175-to-pursue-bivol-beterbiev","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/475445\/","title":{"rendered":"Benavidez Plans Return To 175 To Pursue Bivol, Beterbiev"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After stopping Anthony Yarde in defense of his WBC 175-pound title in November, Benavidez revealed that he would be moving up in weight for his next fight. The 29-year-old declared that he will challenge WBO and WBA cruiserweight titleholder Gilberto Ramirez, although it hasn\u2019t been officially announced.<\/p>\n<p>However, according to Benavidez, his cruiserweight trip will be a short one. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m a fight Zurdo Ramirez,\u201d Benavidez said on the Danza Project. \u201cThen we\u2019re gonna come down, and we\u2019re gonna make that fight with [Dmitry] Bivol. Then after that we\u2019re gonna fight [Artur] Beterbiev.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Taking on those Russian monsters has been Benavidez\u2019s No. 1 goal since entering the light heavyweight division in 2024.<\/p>\n<p>Bivol was ordered by the WBC to face Benavidez after his victory over Beterbiev (21-1, 20 KOs) in their rematch to become undisputed champion. However, Bivol (24-1, 12 KOs) decided to drop that belt and pursue a trilogy against Beterbiev instead. Then that fight didn&#8217;t happen, at least in part because Bivol had back surgery in August.<\/p>\n<p>Benavidez (31-0, 25 KOs) believes the Russians will have no choice but to fight him eventually. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cSooner or later,&#8221; he said, &#8220;they\u2019re gonna have to see me.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After stopping Anthony Yarde in defense of his WBC 175-pound title in November, Benavidez revealed that he would&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":475446,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[90965,4225,64,63,802,232239,1920,19962,85,2974],"class_list":{"0":"post-475445","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-object-object","9":"tag-article","10":"tag-au","11":"tag-australia","12":"tag-boxing","13":"tag-boxing-articles","14":"tag-boxing-news","15":"tag-light-heavyweight","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-the-ring"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475445","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=475445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/475446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=475445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=475445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=475445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}