{"id":523468,"date":"2026-03-09T00:03:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T00:03:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/523468\/"},"modified":"2026-03-09T00:03:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T00:03:07","slug":"shakur-stevenson-sees-only-one-winner-in-canelo-vs-david-benavidez-im-a-fan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/523468\/","title":{"rendered":"Shakur Stevenson sees only one winner in Canelo vs David Benavidez: “I’m a fan”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shakur Stevenson<\/a> has offered a balanced assessment of why a showdown between Canelo Alvarez<\/a> and David Benavidez<\/a> is yet to materialise.<\/p>\n

The two multi-weight world champions appeared to be on a collision course at 168lbs, with Canelo reigning supreme as the undisputed king.<\/p>\n

Benavidez, meanwhile, had held the WBC \u2018interim\u2019 title after becoming a two-time world super-middleweight champion, awaiting his mandatory shot at the full WBC title.<\/p>\n

Such an opportunity, however, never came to fruition, as Canelo continued to defend his undisputed crown against alternative opposition.<\/p>\n

During this time, the Mexican claimed one-sided points victories over the likes of John Ryder and Jermell Charlo but was widely criticised for not facing his most formidable challenger, Benavidez.<\/p>\n

Since then, Benavidez has claimed the WBC title at 175lbs and now looks to become a three-weight world champion against Gilberto Ramirez<\/a>, who he will face for the WBO and WBA cruiserweight titles on May 2.<\/p>\n

It may seem an audacious move, but the 29-year-old\u2019s frame could see him develop into an effective operator at 200lbs, while Canelo is seemingly best suited to 168lbs.<\/p>\n

The natural size difference has therefore made their clash even less likely, with Stevenson telling Joe Rogan<\/a> that he believes this to be the most significant factor.<\/p>\n

\u201cBenavidez is too big for Canelo. I see both sides. I love Benavidez, and I\u2019m a fan of him, so I see the side of, \u2018Fight me, bro\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut then I see Canelo\u2019s side. He\u2019s like, \u2018Man, this dude is 200lbs on the regular. I\u2019m nowhere near that weight so it\u2019s like, why would I fight this guy?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite coming off a unanimous decision defeat to Terence Crawford, Canelo has been promised a world title opportunity<\/a> by Turki Alalshikh in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, this September.<\/p>\n

Potential options include Christian Mbilli and Jose Armando Resendiz, the respective WBC and WBA champions, while the IBF and WBO super-middleweight world titles remain vacant following Crawford\u2019s retirement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shakur Stevenson has offered a balanced assessment of why a showdown between Canelo Alvarez and David Benavidez is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":523469,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":["post-523468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523468","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=523468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523468\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/523469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}