David Benavidez vs. Anthony Yarde
Anthony Yarde entered this fight on his third attempt at winning a world title, having already come up short against Sergey Kovalev and Artur Beterbiev. Never quite a top-tier talent, but never an easy out either as Yarde gave both Kovalev and Beterbiev, two elite talents, hell, even in defeat.
The opening round is fairly pedestrian, with both men showing a healthy amount of respect for the other’s power. Benavidez starts to settle in during the second and, while Yarde more than holds his own through the opening four rounds, Benavidez’s combination of hand speed and footwork gradually creates a gap between them.
For a guy his size, Benavidez’s hands are almost unbelievable. He might have the fastest hands of any “bigger” fighter I’ve ever seen. Despite this Yarde does a great job interrupting and intercepting Benavidez’s speed. During David’s combinations, Yarde fires back at perfect moments, often after Benavidez gets only two or three punches off, never allowing the champion to settle into his rhythm. It’s a great tactic and pays dividends early for Yarde.
Sidenote: The barrage of uppercuts from the single collar tie at the end of the fourth absolutely fucks. David Benavidez understanding the effectiveness of collar ties better than 99% of MMA fighters is equally sad and hilarious.
The fight changes in the sixth. Yarde tastes his own blood, decides he’s going out on his shield, and starts swinging for the fences. It makes for great viewing, but it also plays right into Benavidez’s hands, giving him even more openings to unleash those blistering combinations. At one point his hands are so fast he even clips Yarde after the knockdown before realizing he’s already on the floor.
Yarde fought with a ton of heart, but this was ultimately a fairly comfortable win for a fighter who, in my opinion, had firmly established himself as one of the best pound-for-pound boxers in the world.
David Benavidez vs. Zurdo Ramirez
Moving up to cruiserweight for the first time to challenge Zurdo Ramirez for the WBA and WBO titles. The context itself meant a lot. Mexico vs. Mexico, the first championship fight between two Mexican fighters above 160 pounds ever. Mano a mano. Whose machismo was going to win out? Well Benavidez shone from the opening bell. If the Yarde fight confirmed what many already believed, this fight is truly what crowned him in the upper echelon of the sport.
From the start of the opening round it already felt like Benavidez was three steps ahead. His speed, timing, accuracy, defense, were all on display. Should he decide to stay at cruiserweight, a lot of these guys are going to feel like they’re stuck in the mud against him. Even Ramirez, a former light heavyweight himself, simply couldn’t match Benavidez’s speed. Benavidez is also the perfect example of what Jack Slack likes to call “80% technical brilliance, 20% bullshit.” Some of the angles he attacks from look completely unorthodox, yet they constantly catch his opponents off guard. And those trademark ten-plus punch combinations thrown in what feels like one second are still some of my favorite things in modern boxing.
One of my favorite habits Benavidez showed off in this fight is how he finished rounds. Like Sugar Ray Leonard in the Marvin Hagler fight, he would spend the final thirty seconds turning the pace up dramatically, making sure that is what the judges remembered. The fourth is the perfect example. Ramirez arguably has his best round of the fight before Benavidez explodes in the closing seconds, dropping him for just the second knockdown of Zurdo’s career. More importantly, he breaks Ramirez’s face, an injury that ultimately decides the fight.
Whether it’s because Ramirez was just that much slower or because Benavidez has genuinely tightened things up so well, this is the best defensive performance I’ve seen from him. He’s always been good defensively, but here he adds another layer to it, keeping Zurdo to under 25% accuracy on his punches.
In the end, Ramirez was forced to take a knee. Honestly, I respect that decision. More fighters should know when the fight is gone. Benavidez had broken his face in the fourth round and continued targeting the injury. Zurdo realized he was facing permanent damage if he continued, and chose to fight another day. That’s an admirable decision.
With the victory not only did Benavidez become a three-division world champion, he cemented himself as, at minimum, a top-three pound-for-pound fighter in the world. Taking his place alongside elite talent Naoya Inoue and Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez.