{"id":598620,"date":"2026-05-22T20:30:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T20:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/598620\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T20:30:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T20:30:08","slug":"roy-jones-jr-urges-david-benavidez-to-avoid-facing-one-man-next-its-not-smart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/598620\/","title":{"rendered":"Roy Jones Jr urges David Benavidez to avoid facing one man next: “It’s not smart”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Roy Jones Jr<\/a> has urged David Benavidez<\/a> to follow in his footsteps and move up to heavyweight, rather than risk his unbeaten record against a lower-profile champion.<\/p>\n

The 29-year-old comes off a dominant display against Gilberto Ramirez, dethroning the Mexican earlier this month<\/a> to become a three-division world champion.<\/p>\n

As a result of his sixth-round stoppage victory, Benavidez claimed the WBO and WBA world cruiserweight titles while still holding his WBC strap at 175lbs.<\/p>\n

He therefore has the opportunity to remain at 200lbs or drop back down to light-heavyweight, where he is actively pursuing an undisputed clash with unified champion Dmitry Bivol.<\/p>\n

Alternatively, though, Benavidez could move up to heavyweight for a potential showdown with Oleksandr Usyk, who takes on Dutch kickboxer Rico Verhoeven this Saturday.<\/p>\n

Should he defeat Verhoeven, as most expect him to, then the Ukrainian is likely to consider Benavidez a possible opponent<\/a> for his next outing.<\/p>\n

As far as pound-for-pound legend Jones is concerned, this represents a far smarter option for Benavidez than to remain at cruiserweight and face Jai Opetaia, for instance.<\/p>\n

While speaking with ALL THE SMOKE FIGHT,<\/a> Jones strongly suggests that \u2018The Mexican Monster\u2019 should move up to heavyweight sooner than later.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is not smart for David Benavidez to give Jai Opetaia a shot at his name right now, because he\u2019s hot right now.<\/p>\n

\u201cGo up and fight Usyk while you\u2019re hot and it makes sense. You can always come back down and fight Opetaia if you want to.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you [lose] to Usyk, the Opetaia fight\u2019s still there. If you lose to Opetaia, the Usyk fight\u2019s gone, so you\u2019ve got to be smart about this. Go take Usyk while the iron is hot.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Benavidez has expressed an interest in eventually jumping up to heavyweight, it appears that his most desirable challenge would come against Bivol, who must first defend his three world titles against Michael Eifert on May 30.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Roy Jones Jr has urged David Benavidez to follow in his footsteps and move up to heavyweight, rather…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":598621,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-598620","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\/598620","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=598620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598620\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/598621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}