Benavidez Urged To Move Up To Heavyweight

Roy Jones Jr. has one fight in mind for David Benavidez (32-0, 26 KOs) following his WBA and WBO cruiserweight title victory over Gilberto Ramirez (48-2, 30KOs) — a move to heavyweight to face unified champion Oleksandr Usyk (24-0, 15 KOs).

Jones, who made the same journey himself by rising from middleweight all the way to heavyweight — believes Benavidez has exhausted the challenges in the lower divisions: “That’s the only fight I want to see him right now. You beat everybody else in all the other divisions. Go up and fight Usyk. That’s the best fight for him.”

Benavidez is now a three-division world champion, having previously held titles at super middleweight and light heavyweight before claiming the cruiserweight straps. Despite the growing calls for a heavyweight move, he has consistently shut the idea down, pointing to the physical size difference as the primary obstacle.

“You guys keep asking me about heavyweight, stop that. It was hard for me to come up to 200. At heavyweight, those guys are super big.”

Benavidez did, however, leave a small window open for the future: “I won’t rule it out. Maybe in five years my body grows into heavyweight. Maybe we can go up there and make a fight in five years,” Benavidez stated