Diego Pacheco believes regular WBA lightweight champion David Morell will be David Benavidez’s “toughest opponent” when they meet on February 1 in the main event at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Pacheco, a super middleweight contender who trains with Benavidez (29-0, 24 KOs), is projected to wear down Morrell (11-0, 9 KOs) and come out on top. He compares Morrell to Caleb Plant, which is a weird comparison, and sees Benavidez start slow but then come on.
The Body Shot Threat
If Benavidez gets hit as hard by Morrell as he did by Plant, he’s going to be in trouble in this fight. Morrell’s strength is very different from Plant’s and will target his weak midsection to shut him down.
Like all fighters, Benavidez has a weakness, which is taking body shots. Morrell will probably put a belt on his fat late elvis gut to score a posture. That’s Benavidez’s kryptonite – he takes hard shots to the basket.
“David Morrell is a guy you can’t take lightly. He’s up there for a reason and one of the best Cubans right now,” Diego Pacheco told the Sean Zittelspeaking of David Morrell, who faces interim WBC light heavyweight champion David Benavidez on February 1st.
“I feel like David (Benavidez) is a monster. He doesn’t let anyone take that away from him. When he gets in there, he goes for the kill. Of course, I think Morrell will be his toughest opponent yet, but I still see David coming out on top. He (Morel) has a good jab, he’s a very good fighter and he keeps his distance very well.
“I feel he will make it difficult for David in the early rounds. But as we saw with Caleb Plant, he did a good job of boxing in the early rounds when he fought David. But David has the chip on his shoulder where he comes forward. Even in clinches, he still takes punches.
Using Caleb Plant as a reason why Benavidez will beat Morrell doesn’t make a lot of sense. Plant is a smaller, bigger fighter without power, and he’s a completely different fighter to the 27-year-old Morrell. Plant has never been a fan of the puncher and was knocked out by Canelo Alvarez. His style is different from Morrell’s.
“I feel like when you’re boxing a guy like David, and he’s still coming forward no matter what you do, it’s hard to keep the same game plan and stick to it. When you have a monster like him, throwing big punches, throwing punches in bunches, it’s tough,” Pacheco said.
This habit of Benavidez walking forward resulted in him eating a lot of head shots against Oleksandr Gvozdyk in their fight last year on June 15th. If Gvozdyk had targeted Benavidez’s body, instead of his cement head block, he might have scored.
When he finally went to the body of Benavidez in the 12th, he hurt him. Benavidez’s weak midsection and the way he leans back in a Fury-esque style leaves his body wide open. Pachecho was touting Benavidez’s ability to avoid headbutting, saying he’s leaning.
This is true, but it leaves his midsection unprotected, which is the only point where he is weak. He may not be able to handle Morrell’s punches to the body or head because he hits harder than anyone he has faced before and is an excellent counter puncher.
“His defense is crazy. He stands so straight. He’s very good at pulling back on punches. In every camp, he gets better. He’s learning,” Pacheco said.
His first opponents
Benavidez’s defense isn’t great. If you watched his last two fights against Oleksandr Gvozdyk and Demetrius Andrade, he was just going Robocop style, blocking shots with his head, training these two bigger fighters. Gvozdyk is 37 and Andrade is 36.
Neither is close to what it was a decade ago. It would be the same thing if Benavidez was on the wrong side of 30, going up against a younger fighter. It wouldn’t do any good.
2025-01-21 07:09:00
