{"id":297138,"date":"2025-11-21T08:24:15","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T08:24:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/297138\/"},"modified":"2025-11-21T08:24:15","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T08:24:15","slug":"benavidez-vs-yarde-how-american-david-benavidez-went-from-an-260lb-kid-to-world-champion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/297138\/","title":{"rendered":"Benavidez vs Yarde: How American David Benavidez went from an 260lb kid to world champion"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the age of 12, David Benavidez weighed 18st 6lb (117kg).<\/p>\n

When the American steps into the ring on Saturday against Briton Anthony Yarde as the defending WBC light-heavyweight champion, he will be 12st 7lb (79kg).<\/p>\n

Now 28 and a two-weight world champion, images on social media of Benavidez as an overweight 13-year-old training with his father show just how far he has come to get into the shape necessary to reach the top.<\/p>\n

“At the time, I would have never imagined I would be a top fighter and one of the biggest in boxing today,” he told BBC Sport.<\/p>\n

“I always had faith in myself. I always knew that with hard work, anything is possible. I’ve never given up on myself. I started off and I wasn’t in shape.<\/p>\n

“I did have the will and the dedication to get to where I wanted to go. That’s the message I want to give to the kids.<\/p>\n

“Other kids and other men could look at my story and take it into their life and achieve anything.”<\/p>\n

As his older brother Jose thrived in the amateur ranks, plans were put in place for Benavidez to drop 100lb.<\/p>\n

By the time he was 15 he was sparring with pros such as multiple middleweight world champion Gennady Golovkin.<\/a><\/p>\n

“I had been boxing since I was three, with my dad training me,” recalled the Phoenix-born fighter.<\/p>\n

“I really believed in myself. When I got back into boxing aged 11, we started moving little by little and cutting the weight.<\/p>\n

“When I lost that first 100lb, I was at 260lb and I got down to 168lb. That’s when I knew I got the biggest part out of the way, and now let’s continue to train and see where it takes us.<\/p>\n

“I wasn’t thinking about being a world champion, I just worked hard every single day. This is not a sprint. I like to think of it as a marathon.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At the age of 12, David Benavidez weighed 18st 6lb (117kg). When the American steps into the ring…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297139,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-297138","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297138\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}