David Benavidez could contend for Fighter of the Year honors in 2026 if even part of his three-fight plan transpires once he’s fought Gilberto ‘Zurdo’ Ramirez atop a TBG Promotions card on Cinco de Mayo weekend, May 2, in a PBC on Prime Video pay-per-view event.
A two-weight boxing champion, Benavidez has lit up the fight game with brutal wins over David Lemieux, Caleb Plant, Demetrius Andrade, David Morrell, and Anthony Yarde, among others, across the super middleweight and light heavyweight divisions.
But this summer, at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Benavidez will leave even the 175-pound division for a challenge at cruiserweight, challenging ‘Zurdo’ for Ramirez’s unified WBA and WBO world championship titles.
Benavidez refuses to stop there, though, and is targeting multiple big names thereafter, wanting only to “make the biggest and best fights happen,” as he told the popular Kick and Twitch streamer N3on.
“There’s a lot of tough fights out there,” the 29-year-old said.
“There’s Dmitry Bivol, Artur Beterbiev, Jai Opetaia. Obviously, Canelo, too — but we don’t know if that’s ever going to happen.”
Benavidez and Ramirez fighting on Cinco de Mayo weekend is a statement regarding the shifting power structure within boxing. In the modern era it’s typically been associated with Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez, but the Mexican powerhouse isn’t likely to compete until Mexican Independence Day weekend in September, one year after his loss via decision to Terence ‘Bud’ Crawford.
Should Benavidez beat Ramirez, take his titles, and become a three-weight champion, he could command those key dates in the boxing calendar himself, and thus make himself more attractive an opponent for Canelo. However, the reality is that, with Alvarez seemingly uninterested in boxing him to date, it’s unlikely he’d do so against a fighter who campaigned as high as 200 pounds.
Bivol, the current unified champion at light heavyweight, has fought twice with Beterbiev with both fighters sharing one win and one loss each. A trilogy has long been mooted but has thus far failed to bear fruit. And so Bivol vs Benavidez would create a tantalizing option.
“I’m going to get ‘Zurdo’ Ramirez, and I’m going after the biggest and best [after],” Benavidez told N3on.
“Bivol, because he has all the belts at light heavyweight. The other monster is Beterbiev. By the time I’m done, they can’t say I’m not the best.”
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