David Benavidez, 27, claims that His Excellency Turki Alalshikh requested that he compete in Los Angeles on August 3rd, dropping to 160 pounds to take on Terence Crawford.
On June 15, he will compete against Oleksandr Gvozdyk for the WBC interim light heavyweight title. He is signed with PBC. Given his cruiserweight build, Benavidez will have a difficult time dropping to 175 pounds in time for his matchup with Gvozdyk. In the event that Benavidez prevails in that bout, he might face the victor of Artur Beterbiev vs. Dmitry Bivol, the 175-pound champions, on June 1.
Crawford(40-0, 18KOs) a 36-year old American professional boxer, needs to defeat a quality opponent at 168 pounds in order to establish himself as a serious contender for the undisputed super middleweight title against Canelo Alvarez. Although Benavidez (28-0, 24 KOs) would be ideal, he would certainly not be if he had to drop to 160 pounds.
On the August 3rd show, Crawford will compete for the WBA 154-lb belt, and he intends to dominate that weight class. In order to show that he is deserving of a crack at the title against Canelo, Crawford may be able to fight Benavidez if he can reach 168 if he meets his aim at 154. If that battle goes down, Benavidez will be dropping back down from 175 points.
“I had talked to Turki. They had wanted me to fight in August. I told them, ‘I’m with PBC. We got this big card [on June 15th].’ So, I think that was just the conversation of opening the doors that this might be a reality that we could make this happen. We never got to that point,” said Benavidez in media reports.
“He did mention to me one fighter. He wanted me to go down to 160 and fight Crawford. I said, ‘Bro, I cannot do that,” he added.
“If I was able to make 160, that would be amazing, but I can’t. I don’t remember the last time I weighed 160. I would love to share the ring with him but not at 160,” said Benavidez about Crawford.
