David Benavidez is flying high in professional boxing at the moment but Beterbiev has brought up a solid point on something.
Benavidez in his last fight was maybe at his best in his boxing career so far.
Moving up from light-heavyweight to cruiserweight suited him and you could tell he was refreshed at the weight.
Even though making 175 pounds at light-heavyweight did not kill him to do so. He had a lot of speed and combinations up at cruiserweight.
He won by impressive knockout of Gilberto Zurdo Ramirez recently but former light-heavyweight champion Artur Beterbiev has pointed to his use of the elbow.
Beterbiev has pointed to David Benavidez elbowing Gilberto Ramirez towards the end of the fight before the stoppage.
And the ref did absolutely nothing about it. He may have a point.
Benavidez is 32-0 now but as well Gilberto Ramirez was very poor on the night — he was slower than he has been in some time.
If you analyze Benavidez’ record though he has not really fought any elite fighters in the pound for pound rankings.
Or fighters who have ever been in it.
He has beaten some solid fighters like Caleb Plant, David Lemieux, Anthony Direll, Demetirius Andrade and Gilberto Ramirez, but there is a caveat here.
They are nowhere near the standard of the likes of Dmitry Bivol or Artur Beterbiev.
Both have been in the pound for pound rankings before, none of the fighters Benavidez has fought have.
That is the difference.
For Artur Beterbiev’s part he is trying to make the fight happen with Benavidez and Bivol at the moment.
You cannot knock him for that.
Who knows what fights the three of them might find themselves in next up.
Who knows if we see Dmitry Bivol fight again — he is going under the knife in surgery yet again.
There is no tougher sport than professional boxing on Earth and for him to keep going through these surgeries like this is not normal.
His body is not there for him anymore at that level.
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