The father and head coach of David Benavidez has revealed his contingency plan if an undisputed light-heavyweight clash with Dmitry Bivol fails to materialise.
Benavidez moved up to 200lbs and dethroned Gilberto Ramirez last month, scoring a sixth-round stoppage to become a three-division world champion.
His plan, however, was always to move back down to 175lbs, where he still holds the WBC title and is eager to face unified world champion Bivol.
Unfortunately for ‘The Mexican Monster’, it has been reported that Bivol is edging more towards a rubber match with Artur Beterbiev. He also has a mandatory challenger in Callum Smith to deal with, meaning he may drop one of his three belts.
As a result, Jose Benavidez Sr is now considering a cruiserweight unification match between his son, who holds the WBO and WBA titles, and WBC champion Noel Mikaelian.
Speaking with MillCity Boxing, Jose highlighted this as a leading option after saying the teams of Bivol, Beterbiev and former cruiserweight champion Jai Opetaia are not engaging in talks.
“I’m trying to make these fights. I even told David: ‘These guys are not responding. Let’s fight [Mikaelian]’.
“That’s not a fight that really interests me… I’m just trying to make these fights with whoever [is available].
“If the father of Bivol is watching this: stop talking. You say you want to shut [Benavidez] up, [so] let’s make it happen.”
Benavidez petitioned the WBC to become mandatory challenger to Mikaelian and was successful. Therefore, if the WBC champion opts to face Opetaia later this year, as was previously reported, he will be stripped of his belt.
