{"id":567931,"date":"2026-05-05T19:34:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T19:34:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/567931\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T19:34:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T19:34:07","slug":"heavyweight-world-champion-warns-benavidez-that-moving-up-to-his-division-is-a-step-too-far","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/567931\/","title":{"rendered":"Heavyweight world champion warns Benavidez that moving up to his division is a ‘step too far’"},"content":{"rendered":"

David Benavidez<\/a> has been warned against moving up to the heavyweight division.<\/p>\n

Benavidez proved his worth as one of the best fighters in the world on Saturday when he successfully stepped up to cruiserweight to dethrone WBA and WBO champion Gilberto Ramirez<\/a> with a sixth round stoppage win.<\/p>\n

It is the third division that Benavidez has held gold after two previous spells as WBC super-middleweight champion along with his current reign as WBC light heavyweight champion, and fans are eagerly anticipating what he could attempt to do next.<\/p>\n

There has been some speculation that \u2018The Mexican Monster\u2019 may move up to the banner division for a showdown with heavyweight king Oleksandr Usyk<\/a>, but the other current world heavyweight champion has warned that it wouldn\u2019t be a good idea.<\/p>\n

Fabio Wardley is the man who holds the WBO heavyweight strap, and speaking to Fight Hub TV<\/a>, he explained why Benavidez shouldn\u2019t attempt to make the move further up in weight.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt might be a step too far. There\u2019s a large difference. From where he was before to jump to cruiserweight there\u2019s a difference, and then to go from cruiserweight to heavyweight, there\u2019s an even bigger gap as well. It doesn\u2019t seem like anything in the realm of possibility at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wardley returns to action this weekend, putting his title on the line against countryman Daniel Dubois at the Co-Op Live in Manchester, where the Ipswich fighter will be hoping a victory there could lead to his own future clash with Usyk.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Benavidez has said he wants to drop back down to 175lbs to face Dmitry Bivol for the undisputed light-heavyweight title.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"David Benavidez has been warned against moving up to the heavyweight division. Benavidez proved his worth as one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":567932,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-567931","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\/567931","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=567931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/567932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=567931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=567931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=567931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}