5 Best Fights for David Benavidez After Win vs. Caleb Plant

It’s a big stretch for the super middleweights.

Just more than a week after pay-per-view stalwart—and undisputed 168-pound champion—Canelo Álvarez announced he’d be returning to the ring in early May, two fighters hoping to be next on his dance card this summer met atop their own PPV show in Las Vegas on Saturday.

Top contenders David Benavidez and Caleb Plant, who’ve combined for eight title-fight wins across three belted reigns in the weight class, were at the MGM Grand as the main eventers in a card carried live from the desert by Showtime and PPV.com.

Benavidez emerged victorious by punishing decision and put himself at the front of the line for a date with the Mexican superstar, but the B/R combat sports team surveyed the entire competitive landscape available to the unbeaten 26-year-old just in case things don’t come together.

Take a look at what we came up with and drop a take or two of your own in the comments.

Let’s start with the most desirable option, shall we?

Given his 27-0 record and two reigns as the WBC’s champion, not to mention his newly certified status as the organization’s mandatory challenger to full-fledged claimant, it’s no surprise that Canelo Álvarez has been on Benavidez’s wish list.

He pulled no punches in a recent chat with Everything Boxing, suggesting that Álvarez, who’s been the WBC champ since 2020, needs to go ahead and sign for a fight with him or relinquish the throne if he’s decided against the matchup.

Incidentally, for tales of the tape purposes, Benavidez stands 6’2″ to Álvarez’s 5’8″ and has a 74.5-inch reach compared to Álvarez’s 70.5. Álvarez is 7-0 with four KOs from 160 to 168 pounds, including an 11th-round KO of Plant in November 2021.

“Now, this fight [with Plant], the winner is the mandatory for Canelo. That’s what it has to be. If he doesn’t want to fight me, then he has to vacate the belt,” he said. “I feel it’ll be a big opportunity to miss because the fans want to see this fight. It’s a big fight, and may the best man win.”

It wouldn’t be entirely off base to call David Morrell a prodigy.

He still just 25 years old and has only eight professional fights after an extensive amateur career in which he fought 132 times and won a youth world championship representing Cuba in 2016. But even in a limited time, he’s picked up some street cred.

He turned pro with a first-round KO in Minneapolis in 2019 and had only four wins under his belt before picking up the WBA’s admittedly dubious second-tier “world” title—Álvarez holds the full-fledged crown—with another first-round stoppage in 2021.

Three more fights have yielded three more KOs across three more “title defenses” lasting a combined 20 rounds, lifting Morrell’s still fledgling record to 8-0 with 7 KOs.

The Ring has him fourth among Álvarez’s ranked contenders—trailing Benavidez, Plant and imminent May opponent John Ryder—and the 6’1″ southpaw with a 78.5-inch reach is already well-rehearsed in proclaiming his elite status.

“I still have many things to conquer in the division,” he told BoxingScene in 2021. “The truth is that I am the best, but not legally because I do not have all the titles. At the moment I am among the four [champions], from there to [No.] 1 there is little left.”

If you’re looking for heat, look at Jermall Charlo.

He and Benavidez have had one another’s names in their mouths for qu