{"id":580191,"date":"2026-05-12T17:30:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T17:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/580191\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T17:30:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T17:30:07","slug":"top-trainer-robert-garcia-backs-david-benavidez-to-beat-heavyweight-champion-and-make-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/580191\/","title":{"rendered":"Top trainer Robert Garcia backs David Benavidez to beat heavyweight champion and make history"},"content":{"rendered":"

David Benavidez<\/a>\u2019s victory over Gilberto Ramirez got the boxing world talking about whether a potential history-making heavyweight title win could be on the cards, and now top-rated trainer Robert Garcia has shared his thoughts on the debate.<\/p>\n

Having ruled at both super-middleweight and light-heavyweight, Benavidez made the 25lbs leap up to cruiserweight and made easy work of unified WBO and WBA champion, Ramirez, halting the Mexican in round six<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As a result, many fans are questioning whether Benavidez should ditch his plans of returning to light heavyweight and possibly venture all the way up to heavyweight<\/a> to pursue a showdown with current unified champion Oleksandr Usyk.<\/p>\n

Should he claim heavyweight gold, Benavidez would join Roy Jones Jr as just the second man to have truly reigned at super-middleweight and heavyweight, not including James Toney\u2019s heavyweight title win, which was subsequently ruled as a no-contest due to a failed drugs test. \u2018The Mexican Monster\u2019 is currently the only man to have won titles at 168, 175 and 200lbs.<\/p>\n

Speaking to ES News<\/a>, Garcia, who has trained the likes of Anthony Joshua, Jesse Rodriguez and Nonito Donaire, stated his belief that \u2018The Mexican Monster\u2019 would be able to dethrone Usyk in two years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that Benavidez beats Usyk two years from now. [Usyk is nearly 40 already,] so imagine two years from now, Benavidez beats him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whether or not Usyk sticks around that long remains to be seen. The two-weight undisputed champion fights kickboxer Rico Verhoeven this month, and has said he will compete twice more before seriously considering retirement.<\/p>\n

With plenty of contenders already in the division and worthy of a shot at the Ukrainian, the Benavidez bout seems a long way off, not least because Benavidez himself seems intent, for now, on dropping back down rather than moving up further.<\/p>\n

Benavidez does plan to make a move to the top division at one stage, however, and if Garcia believes he can beat someone as talented as Usyk, even with age playing a factor, he will likely back him against many other heavyweights.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"David Benavidez\u2019s victory over Gilberto Ramirez got the boxing world talking about whether a potential history-making heavyweight title…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":580192,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-580191","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\/580191","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=580191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/580192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=580191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=580191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=580191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}