Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
David Benavidez appears to be making a preemptive excuse by saying that his opponent, ‘regular’ welterweight champion David Morrell, was lax in wanting to be drug tested by WADA. The two fight on February 1st on PBC on Prime Video PPV at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
In the interview, Benavidez (29-0, 24 KOs) went to great lengths to talk about Morrell (11-0, 9 KOs) and drug testing, bringing out two of his knockout victims, Sena Agbeko and Calvin Henderson, to support his argument.
A “safety net”?
To some, it looks like Benavidez, 28, is trying to muddy the waters in case he loses to Morel. If Benavidez gets beat, the fans won’t lash out at him and abandon ship because of suspicions that Morrell is using drugs. That would give the ‘Mexican monster’ a free pass to avoid the backlash he would otherwise receive if he lost to Cuban Morel.
“Morrell actually submitted his VADA paperwork 1 day BEFORE Benavidez in late November. #Fact,” said Keith Idek Ks.
It’s unfortunate that Benavidez has spoken about his doubts about Morel several times before, because it tarnishes the match and diminishes interest. But for Benavidez, it gives him a built-in excuse if something goes wrong and he gets knocked out or beaten on points.
Benavidez’s no-wrecking style of fighting, charging with every punch, will put him at risk of being knocked out by Morrell. In his last fight against Aleksandr Gvozdik, fighting like that, he was hit a lot and he was lucky that the Ukrainian fighter was mostly pushing his punches and not putting the maximum power into them that he was.
In the second half of that fight, Gvozdik repeatedly took advantage of Benavides’ careless style to nail him with powerful punches. He hurt Benavidez in the 12th round with a kick to his soft midsection that completely shut him down in the last 30 seconds of the fight. Benavidez didn’t throw anything after getting hit by a right hand in the breadbasket from Gvozdik in that round.
Benavides’ preemptive excuse
“It’s not an excuse, but when you go through other fighters who say, ‘Hey, I got tested by WADA, but David Morrell didn’t get tested,’ it raises a lot of questions,” David Benavidez said. mediavoicing his suspicions that David Morrell is a dirty fighter ahead of their February 1 fight.
“I’m not the only fighter who said this.” There were two other fighters (former Morrell knockout victim Sena Agbeko and Calvin Henderson). We are talking about Agbek. He says the entire camp was tested. David Morrell was not tested, and they didn’t do any drug tests after the fight, which I found a bit strange.
“I don’t really care about that.” Even if (Morrell) was on steroids, I would beat him, but if you’re a dirty fighter, you’re going to be exposed. That’s why they make such a big deal. They didn’t want to test themselves, but the dirty fighters will be exposed in the game. It’s not good for sports, and it’s not good for people to use steroids. So I’m not going to let that s*** slide,” Benavidez said.
It’s so disappointing to see Benavidez keep bringing up drug testing, making it clear that he’s planting an excuse in the minds of fans ahead of the Morelo fight. The Cuban thinks this is a signal that Benavidez is “afraid” of him.
“They test us because I keep putting pressure on VADA saying, ‘We have to test. We have to test.’ These are high caliber fights that need to be tested. When I fought Caleb Plant, and when I fought Demetrius Andrade, we tested each other for 14 weeks. We’ve barely started testing for nine weeks on this one.
“It’s not like I asked things I didn’t do myself.” “WADA tested me more than anyone,” Benavidez said.
