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Trainer Stephen Edwards believes David Morrell does not have the ring IQ to defeat interim WBC light heavyweight champion David Benavidez in their fight on February 1.
Stephen thinks WBA ‘regular’ 175lb champion Morrell (11-0, 9 KOs) relies too much on his power and explosiveness and doesn’t have a bag of tricks to fall back on if that doesn’t work out.
Edwards notes that Morel struggled against Radivoj Kalajdzic on Aug. 3 in his debut at 175, but was never in danger of losing. Indeed, Morrell dominated every round of the fight, but occasionally took big shots from Hot Rod, who can punch.
This guy has better power than Benavidez and Morel had to be careful at times. He mostly nailed Hot Rod at will with powerful punches and hurt him a few times.
Stephen fought the ‘Mexican Monster’ Benavidez (29-0, 24 KO) when he defeated his fighter Caleb Plant last year on March 25, 2023 and it didn’t go well for them. He came out of that fight impressed with Benavidez.
Plant was too weak and small for Benavidez, who looked like a cruiser in the ring in that fight,
Morrell vs. Benavidez will headline Feb. 1 on PBC on Prime Video PPV at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. This is the first fight in Benavidez’s 11-year career where he faces someone in a 50-50 fight who has a chance to beat him.
The closest he ever came to an opponent who had a chance to beat him was in his last fight against Oleksandr Gvozdyk in his debut at 175 on June 15th. Benavidez tired early in that fight and was really hit by Gvozdik from the 7th to the 12th round.
“This is a fight that David Morrell can win, but I don’t know if he will win,” said Stephen Edwards Fighthippe about the David Benavidez vs. David Morrell fight on February 1st. “He had problems with ‘Hot Rod’, but he didn’t lose.”
“There’s a difference when you go back to your corner and you don’t know if you’re up there.” I need to see what his adjustments are like when he’s not winning a fight or when the other guy is putting mental pressure on him where it starts to create a little doubt.
“I’m very impressed with David Morrell, but he kind of relies on his strength, power and size. He’s too big to fight at 168. He’s a big guy. I’m very impressed with him, but a lot of the guys he’s been up against have been so much smaller than him that he doesn’t have to go into his bag of tricks to rely on other things like his IQ.
Like Benavides, Morrell was too big for the 168-pound division, but he doesn’t fight at 175. Both fought smaller fighters in the super middleweight division. It wasn’t just Morrell who fought a lot of smaller guys. Benavidez was always bigger than his opponents during the 11 years he fought at 168.
“I’m not saying it’s not there, but I haven’t seen it yet,” Edwarda said of Morell’s IQ. “I’m going to pick David Benavidez.” I think his IQ is very underrated. His defense is underrated. People say he’s easy to hit, but when you fight like he fights, you’re going to get hit when you go to the guy. Plus, he’s a big guy, but he takes a lot of hits.
“He’s really good at hitting with you. He can hit. He is very aware of his defense. He does not allow his head to be smashed everywhere. When you see it hit, take a close look at it. Even when they hit him, his hands are up. So the shots will have to go through his gloves. He rejects a lot of power,” Edwards said of Benavidez.
