{"id":452644,"date":"2026-03-01T22:15:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T22:15:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/452644\/"},"modified":"2026-03-01T22:15:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T22:15:07","slug":"dmitry-bivol-picks-a-winner-in-gilberto-ramirez-vs-david-benavidez-he-has-the-key","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/452644\/","title":{"rendered":"Dmitry Bivol picks a winner in Gilberto Ramirez vs David Benavidez: &#8220;He has the key&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Unified champion <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/boxer\/dmitry-bivol\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Dmitry Bivol<\/a>, who conclusively outpointed <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/boxer\/gilberto-ramirez\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Gilberto Ramirez<\/a> in 2022, has predicted his former foe\u2019s upcoming cruiserweight clash with <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/boxer\/david-benavidez\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">David Benavidez<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The pair will collide for Ramirez\u2019s WBO and WBA titles on May 2, headlining a Premier Boxing Champions pay-per-view card at Las Vegas\u2019 T-Mobile Arena.<\/p>\n<p>Bidding to become a three-division world champion, Benavidez comes off a seventh-round finish over Anthony Yarde in November, making a successful first defence of his WBC light-heavyweight title.<\/p>\n<p>The belt previously belonged to Bivol, whose <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/news\/dmitrii-bivol-claims-undisputed-crown-with-majority-decision-over-artur-beterbiev\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">majority decision victory over Artur Beterbiev<\/a> in February 2025 saw him become the undisputed king at 175lbs.<\/p>\n<p>Before undergoing back surgery, though, the masterful technician opted to vacate his WBC title, allowing \u2018The Mexican Monster\u2019 to be upgraded from \u2018interim\u2019 to full champion.<\/p>\n<p>Ramirez, meanwhile, defended his unified cruiserweight crown by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazn.com\/en-GB\/news\/boxing\/gilberto-zurdo-ramirez-takes-unanimous-decision-over-yuniel-dorticos-sends-clear-message-to-jai-opetaia\/pmz4n015cx4q1k8qz2bt4nrts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">convincingly outpointing Yuniel Dorticos<\/a> in June, which followed his unanimous decision victories to dethrone Arsen Goulamirian and Chris Billam-Smith the previous year.<\/p>\n<p>Prior to that, Ramirez had become a world champion at 168lbs, before suffering his only professional defeat against Bivol at light-heavyweight.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking with <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/xij1UpIZdBI?si=H7BA01PgI6n2E4Kf\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Fight Hub TV<\/a>, Bivol highlighted the speed of Benavidez as a potentially significant factor in his clash with \u2018Zurdo\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI didn\u2019t see \u2018Zurdo\u2019 fight last year [against Dorticos], so I don\u2019t know what shape he\u2019s in. But I think the key to this fight will be the speed, and Benavidez has better speed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sure enough, Benavidez is often credited with having tremendous speed, both in terms of his hands and feet, while Ramirez is hailed more for his technical prowess.<\/p>\n<p>If he is to retain his titles, then the 34-year-old must select his moments and time Benavidez with counters, although this is much easier said than done.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unified champion Dmitry Bivol, who conclusively outpointed Gilberto Ramirez in 2022, has predicted his former foe\u2019s upcoming cruiserweight&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":452645,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-452644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452644","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=452644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452644\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}