{"id":676941,"date":"2026-07-06T16:08:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T16:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/676941\/"},"modified":"2026-07-06T16:08:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T16:08:08","slug":"david-benavidez-confirms-next-opponent-plan-its-not-the-hardest-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/676941\/","title":{"rendered":"David Benavidez confirms next opponent plan: “It’s not the hardest fight”"},"content":{"rendered":"

David Benavidez<\/a> has outlined his strategy to face an inferior opponent, collect another title and negotiate a more lucrative deal with Al Haymon\u2019s PBC.<\/p>\n

\u2018The Mexican Monster\u2019 comes off a sixth-round finish over Gilberto Ramirez<\/a>, who he dethroned for the WBO and WBA cruiserweight titles in May.<\/p>\n

In doing so, Benavidez became a three-division world champion and cemented himself as a top 10 pound-for-pound operator, while still holding the WBC strap at 175lbs.<\/p>\n

The 29-year-old has therefore afforded himself several options for his next outing, which seems likely to be against WBC cruiserweight champion Noel Mikaelian.<\/p>\n

It was initially reported that Mikaelian, who comes off a unanimous decision victory over Badou Jack<\/a> in December, would be facing Zuffa champion Jai Opetaia later this year.<\/p>\n

Since those talks commenced, though, Benavidez has become the WBC mandatory challenger at 200lbs, seemingly attempting to torpedo negotiations between Opetaia and Mikaelian.<\/p>\n

In any case, the Mexican-American has told Luis Parra<\/a> that he expects to secure a three-belt unification match, which would signify the final fight on his promotional contract with PBC.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, I have to be very smart with my fights, because this is the last fight on my contract with PBC. I\u2019m negotiating a new contract. I don\u2019t want to take the hardest fight in the last fight of my deal.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I am going to do is fight another champion at cruiserweight, and after I win that fight, I\u2019ll have [one world title] at light-heavyweight and three titles at cruiserweight. That gives me more leverage to negotiate a bigger contract.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Mikaelian represents a solid opponent, Benavidez has previously expressed his desire to face Dmitry Bivol in a far more appealing undisputed light-heavyweight clash.<\/p>\n

But if both champions keep hold of their belts at 175lbs, then perhaps this matchup could be explored at some point in 2027.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"David Benavidez has outlined his strategy to face an inferior opponent, collect another title and negotiate a more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":676942,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-676941","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\/676941","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=676941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676941\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/676942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=676941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=676941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=676941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}