{"id":352958,"date":"2026-01-05T07:16:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T07:16:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/352958\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T07:16:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T07:16:13","slug":"david-benavidez-credits-gennadiy-golovkin-for-helping-development-into-an-elite-fighter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/352958\/","title":{"rendered":"David Benavidez credits Gennadiy Golovkin for helping development into an elite fighter"},"content":{"rendered":"

David Benavidez<\/a> feels that he\u2019s forever indebted to Gennadiy Golovkin, a former middleweight king and recently anointed Hall of Fame fighter.<\/a><\/p>\n

From 15-19, Benavidez was one of Golovkin\u2019s primary sparring partners. Benavidez sparred with Golovkin until he fought Daniel Jacobs in 2017, just before the Kazakh KO artist\u2019s first of three bouts against Canelo Alvarez. <\/p>\n

\u201cI only had 15 amateur fights \u2014 my amateur career was sparring world champions,\u201d Benavidez said recently after beating Anthony Yarde. <\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI give Gennadiy Golovkin all of the credit he deserves because he’s the reason why I am the fighter that I am today. When I was sparring him, those were real fights. He would push me to new levels, so I would have to find different ways to get out of the way because he was punching with everything. He made me learn more and raised my IQ, just by being in there with him. Hats off to Golovkin. He’s a great man and a great champion, inside and outside the ring. I owe him a lot. I learned a lot from him. I am the fighter I am today because of those sparring sessions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ever since evolving from the Golovkin days, Benavidez (31-0, 25 KOs) has matured as a top pound-for-pound fighter during a pro career that kicked off in 2013. He\u2019s rated eighth<\/a> pound-for-pound by The Ring. <\/a>
Benavidez is a two-time super middleweight titleholder who is the WBC light heavyweight champion. He’s set to face WBA and WBO cruiserweight champion Gilberto Ramirez<\/a> on May 2 in Las Vegas. <\/p>\n

Manouk Akopyan is The Ring\u2019s lead writer. Follow him on X and Instagram: @ManoukAkopyan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"David Benavidez feels that he\u2019s forever indebted to Gennadiy Golovkin, a former middleweight king and recently anointed Hall…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":192231,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,6842,6836,6841,6840,6834,6102,6837,6838,6839,6835,6588,6847,6846,6830,6828,6829,6844,6831,6827,6848,6843,101,6845,6826,6833,56,54,55,6832],"class_list":["post-352958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-boxing-community","tag-boxing-fights","tag-boxing-history","tag-boxing-interviews","tag-boxing-magazine","tag-boxing-news","tag-boxing-photos","tag-boxing-rankings","tag-boxing-schedule","tag-boxing-videos","tag-boxing-results","tag-disqualification","tag-draw","tag-fight","tag-fighter","tag-fighter-news","tag-knockout","tag-latest-boxing-matches","tag-ring","tag-ring-magazine","tag-split-decision","tag-sports","tag-technical-knockout","tag-the-ring","tag-top-fighters","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-upcoming-boxing-matches"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352958","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=352958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}