{"id":778196,"date":"2026-09-21T21:22:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T21:22:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/778196\/"},"modified":"2026-09-21T21:22:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T21:22:12","slug":"david-benavidez-targeting-former-heavyweight-champion-for-his-first-fight-in-the-division","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/778196\/","title":{"rendered":"David Benavidez targeting former heavyweight champion for his first fight in the division"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/boxer\/david-benavidez\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">David Benavidez<\/a> is seeking to establish himself as the pound-for-pound king within the next couple of years and his father and trainer, Jose Benavidez Sr, has now revealed an audacious four-fight plan that culminates with a heavyweight debut against a former world champion.<\/p>\n<p>Benavidez has only fought once so far this year, but he competed in style as he made the treacherous 25lb leap from light-heavyweight to cruiserweight to knock out unified world champion Gilberto Ramirez inside six rounds.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking with <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/EMxVXDj92mY?si=QFRM_wXIUX-o9E7B\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ProBox TV<\/a>, Benavidez Sr confirmed <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/news\/new-cruiser-champ-benavidez-fight\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">his son\u2019s plans to face WBC cruiserweight world champion Michal Cieslak in December<\/a>, before targeting match-up\u2019s with Jai Opetaia and then either Artur Beterbiev or Dmitry Bivol \u2013 making for a potentially sensational 2027 run.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s funny because I was talking to David and what we are looking at; I sat down with David a little bit, we are looking for December to beat the WBC world champion and go with Opetaia, then come down and fight Beterbiev\/Bivol.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Benavidez Sr then unveiled the fourth fight on his son\u2019s mind, declaring that the unified cruiserweight titleholder could then make the move up to the heavyweight division and face former WBA, WBO and IBF world champion Andy Ruiz Jr.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAfter that we would love make a fight with Andy Ruiz Jr.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are just dreaming here but those are the fights that are very possible to make, I told him that I think those fights are possible to make. Imagine David Benavidez-Andy Ruiz! I want to give a big shoutout to Andy Ruiz, he is a great fighter and my heart is with him, he is like family to me.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut, at the end of the day, I believe that he would love the same \u2013 an opportunity to fight \u2018The Mexican Monster\u2019 \u2013 and for us it would be a great opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ruiz ended a two-year stint of inactivity when he <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/boxing\/articles\/cdx0kvpevlko\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">returned to action against Damian Knyba at the beginning of the month and suffered a third career defeat<\/a>, although the 37-year-old has maintained that he wishes to continue in the sport and bounce back from the loss.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"David Benavidez is seeking to establish himself as the pound-for-pound king within the next couple of years and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":778197,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-778196","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\/778196","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=778196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/778196\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/778197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=778196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=778196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=778196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}