David Benavidez says he will never fight opponents who ignore the traditional four sanctioning bodies. The WBC light heavyweight champion Benavidez (30-0, 24 KOs) feels that fighters who follow this practice undermine the sport, making it less prestigious.<\/p>\n
The \u201cJunk Food\u201d Era of Prizefighting<\/p>\n
A growing number of mercenary-like fighters, popular on social media, have taken advantage of their large followings to arrange fights without titles. They\u2019re the equivalent of celebrity-like matches with no sporting value. It\u2019s junk food-type fights that entertain their followers, but undermine boxing. These fighters bypass the rankings and attempt to schedule fights with popular opponents.<\/p>\n
A Blow to Boxing\u2019s Prestige<\/p>\n
\u2018The Mexican Monster\u2019 Benavidez views this as like \u201ctaking away the Super Bowl\u201d when fighters bypass the sanctioning bodies. He told Salvador Rodriguez of ESPN Knockout<\/a>, \u201cI will never fight with them.\u201d<\/p>\n What Benavidez says will be music to the ears of the four sanctioning bodies, as the last thing they want is to be devalued, ignored, or replaced by a newly created organization.<\/p>\n Fighters who ignore the sanctioning bodies could be more common in the future. Once they gain a large following by fighting for the traditional four alphabet belts, they ignore the belts and focus on just lining up money fights. If there\u2019s a belt at stake, it\u2019s only used as marketing. They then vacate the title if they win it because it\u2019s not what they\u2019re after.<\/p>\n Shakur Stevenson: The New Prototype<\/p>\n Shakur Stevenson is an example of that. He\u2019s targeting a fight against WBO light welterweight champion Teofimo Lopez for January 2026, not for his title. He wants the payday. Shakur has already said he\u2019ll give the WBO belt to his \u2018brother\u2019 Keyshawn Davis after he wins it.<\/p>\n Enter Zuffa Boxing \u2014 and the Temptation Ahead<\/p>\n Benavidez will likely be in demand by the new Zuffa Boxing league when it goes into operation in 2026. It\u2019ll be interesting to see if they can poach Benavidez by offering him a deal that he can\u2019t refuse, to have him as a draw to lure fans to subscribe to watch him in the new league.<\/p>\n Having Benavidez in the new league will initially capture the interest of many fans. What could result in them quickly jumping ship is if he fights prospects in total mismatches with no entertainment value.<\/p>\n The WBC light heavyweight champion Benavidez defends against Anthony Yarde (27-3, 24 KOs) in the 12-round headliner on The Ring IV event on November 22, 2025, at the ANB Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The event will be shown live on DAZN<\/a> PPV.<\/p>\n Tom Galm has covered the global boxing scene since 2014, specializing in heavyweight analysis, business trends, and fighter psychology.<\/p>\n Boxing News 24<\/a> \u00bb David Benavidez<\/a> \u00bb The Mexican Monster Draws His Line: Benavidez Refuses to Join Boxing\u2019s Beltless Circus<\/p>\n Last Updated on 11\/06\/2025 \t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"David Benavidez says he will never fight opponents who ignore the traditional four sanctioning bodies. The WBC light…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":247798,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-247797","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247797\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}