{"id":717490,"date":"2026-06-05T20:05:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T20:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/717490\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T20:05:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T20:05:10","slug":"beterbiev-blasts-benavidez-for-backing-out-of-planned-bout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/717490\/","title":{"rendered":"Beterbiev blasts Benavidez for backing out of planned bout"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Beterbiev says he was supposed to square off against Benavidez before \u201cThe Mexican Monster\u201d opted instead to move up to the cruiserweight division to <a class=\"underline text-text-primary font-medium hover:text-blue-70 transition-colors\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ringmagazine.com\/news\/benavidez-floors-stops-ramirez-in-sixth-to-win-cruiserweight-titles-39zpkCWO9u2jBKLSLJ4wTE\">stop Gilberto Ramirez<\/a> inside six rounds last month for the WBA and WBO titles.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe had a fight with Anthony Yarde [on November 22], and I agreed to fight him after that,\u201d Beterbiev told Match TV in Russian.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHis team apparently didn&#8217;t expect me to agree so quickly, so they immediately changed their mind and chose Ramirez. That was a year ago. Generally, this has become the norm in boxing \u2013 sometimes I&#8217;ll box, sometimes I won&#8217;t, choosing opponents, I like this one, I don&#8217;t like that one. I have a different mentality. That&#8217;s foreign to me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Beterbiev (21-1, 20 KOs) was supposed to be featured on the Benavidez-Yarde undercard as part of the \u201cThe Ring IV: Night of The Champions\u201d show in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, but his planned fight against Deon Nicholson never came to be.<\/p>\n<p>The 41-year-old hasn\u2019t fought since suffering a majority decision loss to Dmitry Bivol in February of last year. Beterbiev won their first fight by unanimous decision in October 2024 to collect all of the crowns at 175 pounds.<\/p>\n<p>Benavidez (32-0, 26 KOs) has since taken a share of the titles in the weight class and currently holds the WBC belt.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Benavidez is the kind of guy who talks a lot more than he does,\u201d Beterbiev said. \u201cBut it must be said that he&#8217;s being handled very skillfully. He&#8217;s already a world champion in two weight classes. But his boxing is dirty, and some of his victories are certainly questionable.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Manouk Akopyan is The Ring\u2019s lead writer. Follow him on <a class=\"underline text-text-primary font-medium hover:text-blue-70 transition-colors\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ManoukAkopyan\">X<\/a> and <a class=\"underline text-text-primary font-medium hover:text-blue-70 transition-colors\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/manoukakopyan\/\">Instagram<\/a>: @ManoukAkopyan.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Beterbiev says he was supposed to square off against Benavidez before \u201cThe Mexican Monster\u201d opted instead to move&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":717491,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[72640,703,184736,711,49,48,24361,82,1134],"class_list":["post-717490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-object-object","tag-boxing","tag-boxing-articles","tag-boxing-news","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-featured-news","tag-sports","tag-the-ring"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717490","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=717490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717490\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/717491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=717490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=717490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=717490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}