David Benavidez is talking about control ahead of his next fight against Gilberto Ramirez, but his recent performances leave a question about whether discipline alone is enough.
He said emotion hurt him in past fights when he disliked his opponent. “Once you hate somebody, all I’m thinking about is [expletive] him up, but not in the right way,” Benavidez said to Sean Zittel. That mindset, he explained, pulled him away from what he needed to do in the ring.
Against opponents he respects, he expects a different approach. “Once you fight somebody that you’re kind of friends with, you start touching, you start working, then you get into your groove,” he said. He added that his plan is already set and there is “nothing he can tell me that’s going to throw me off.”
Benavidez tied his knockout talk to execution rather than chasing it. “The way I get a knockout is me putting the game plan in, executing the game plan. I have to be on my P’s and Q’s,” he said. At the same time, his intent remains the same. “Every single fight, I try to inflict as much damage as possible.”
Recent fights raise questions about that approach. Against David Morrell and Oleksandr Gvozdyk, Benavidez kept a steady pace and threw in volume, but neither fighter appeared close to being stopped. Morrell had the sharper moments, dropping Benavidez and hurting him during exchanges.
Benavidez also dismissed concerns about weight. Referencing Roy Jones Jr., he said his experience makes the difference. “I’ve had tough weight cuts my whole career. I know how to do it. I don’t think that’d be a problem.”
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Last Updated on 2026/04/16 at 7:26 PM