{"id":724003,"date":"2026-06-08T23:40:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T23:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/724003\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T23:40:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T23:40:10","slug":"david-benavidez-most-likely-next-opponent-becomes-clear-as-other-targets-arent-responding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/724003\/","title":{"rendered":"David Benavidez most likely next opponent becomes clear as other targets ‘aren’t responding’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The father and head coach of David Benavidez has revealed his contingency plan if an undisputed light-heavyweight clash with Dmitry Bivol fails to materialise.<\/p>\n

Benavidez moved up to 200lbs and dethroned Gilberto Ramirez<\/a> last month, scoring a sixth-round stoppage to become a three-division world champion.<\/p>\n

His plan, however, was always to move back down to 175lbs, where he still holds the WBC title and is eager to face unified world champion Bivol.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately for \u2018The Mexican Monster\u2019, it has been reported that Bivol is edging more towards a rubber match with Artur Beterbiev. He also has a mandatory challenger in Callum Smith to deal with, meaning he may drop one of his three belts.<\/p>\n

As a result, Jose Benavidez Sr is now considering a cruiserweight unification match between his son, who holds the WBO and WBA titles, and WBC champion Noel Mikaelian.<\/p>\n

Speaking with MillCity Boxing<\/a>, Jose highlighted this as a leading option after saying the teams of Bivol, Beterbiev and former cruiserweight champion Jai Opetaia are not engaging in talks.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m trying to make these fights. I even told David: \u2018These guys are not responding. Let\u2019s fight [Mikaelian]\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not a fight that really interests me\u2026 I\u2019m just trying to make these fights with whoever [is available].<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the father of Bivol is watching this: stop talking. You say you want to shut [Benavidez] up, [so] let\u2019s make it happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Benavidez petitioned the WBC to become mandatory challenger to Mikaelian and was successful.<\/a> Therefore, if the WBC champion opts to face Opetaia later this year, as was previously reported, he will be stripped of his belt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The father and head coach of David Benavidez has revealed his contingency plan if an undisputed light-heavyweight clash…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":722240,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":["post-724003","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\/724003","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=724003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724003\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/722240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=724003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=724003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=724003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}