Two-time super-middleweight champion David Benavidez has vented his frustration at Canelo Alvarez once again, declaring that his pound-for-pound superstar is not a real champion and that he is disrespecting fight fans by holding onto the belts without taking on the rightful contenders.
Canelo Alvarez became the undisputed king in style, defeating each of Callum Smith, Billy Joe Saunders and Caleb Plant within a twelve-month period to pick up all four world titles at 168lbs. After stepping up and losing to Dmitry Bivol, Alvarez returned to his more natural weight and has since defended his crown on four occasions, winning unanimous-decisions against Gennadiy Golovkin, John Ryder, Jermell Charlo and Jaime Munguia.
However, since his return to the division, David Benavidez has been extremely vocal in his call-outs of Alvarez, holding the position as WBC mandatory challenger but being unable to force the fight. This caused so much anger across fight fans and Benavidez himself that ‘The Mexican Monster’ has now made the decision to move out of the super-middleweight division – believing that he will never get a shot at his illusive rival.
Speaking to Fight Hub TV, Benavidez explained why he believes that Canelo is ‘spitting in the face’ of boxing fans by failing to fight him or even David Morrell.
“I did everything in my power that was possible to make this fight happen, if it’s not happening it is because of Canelo – 100%.
“What I wanted to tell you guys too is that this guy is making the most money out of everybody and he is charging so much money for the pay-per-views, it is like he is spitting in your guys’ face. He is saying that he doesn’t give a f**k what you guys want, he is not going to give you the best fights, he is going to fight the fights that he wants.
“In my opinion, that is a little bit disrespectful to the fans but he has cult-like fans and they don’t tell him s**t, they are happy with whatever he does. At the end of the day, if you hold all of the titles, you have got to fight the best in the division.
“I’m the number one contender in the division, the second one is David Morrell, he is not fighting me nor is he fighting David Morrell, so it makes no sense. How is he going to call himself the champion and have all of these belts if he doesn’t fight the number one or the number two guys.
“He is disrespecting you guys, if you guys are cool with that, there is nothing that I can say about that.”
Instead of the much-demanded Canelo fight, Benavidez will make his light-heavyweight debut when he takes on Oleksandr Gvozdyk for the WBC interim title on the Davis-Martin card in Las Vegas this weekend – which fans in the United Kingdom can purchase for £19.99 through Amazon Prime Video.
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