Jim Lampley Talks David Morrell vs David Benavidez Boxing Matchup

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00:00Hey, so let's talk a little bit about the Davids here.

00:05We got two of them.

00:06One of them in particular that I don't know enough about, the Southpaw, the Cuban, who

00:13I think is very dangerous.

00:15I've seen him a couple times fight, and you have said that he poses a problem here for

00:22the Phoenix legend in Benavidez, the monster.

00:26He's got so many nicknames, I can't keep up with him.

00:28But I saw his last fight, the Bodzig fight.

00:32I was there, and I wasn't impressed at all with him, but you had said something about,

00:39I think at the time, what Larry Merchant had said, just win and go on to the next one and

00:44be better in the next one, something to that effect.

00:48Well that's not only true of Morel, that's true also of the opponent, David Benavidez.

00:53In both instances, their last fights were against slightly taller, elongated Eastern

00:59European light heavyweights.

01:02They were going up to 175, where now they're going to fight each other.

01:07But they were both moving up from 168 to 175 to fight against the opponents with whom they

01:13were in, and at the end of the day, they both had to accept that rather than to score the

01:19spectacular knockout, which had somewhat marked their careers, they were going to

01:23have to go forward and try to get a decision.

01:26If you look at the six judges' scores for Morel vs. Kalachick and Benavidez vs. Bodzig,

01:34they are remarkably similar.

01:36It was a similar experience for both fighters, but they did what they had to do.

01:42They got the unanimous decision wins that keep them going forward toward bigger matchups

01:47in the sport, and now here they are together in a fight which excites the passion of boxing

01:52fans because anytime you have two guys in against each other, both of whom have reputations

01:58as punchers, both of whom are seen to be at a high technical skill level, you've got the

02:03makings of a great fight, and this could be a great fight.

02:07El Monstro, you know, he had sparred a lot with that Bodzig before that fight.

02:15Yes, they had sparred a lot with each other, and in boxing, sometimes familiarity leads

02:20to equality.

02:23When they know each other very well, then they know how to diffuse what the other guy

02:26wants to do, and that definitely happened, in my view, in Bodzig vs. Benavidez.

02:32But these two haven't sparred.

02:35No, they don't know each other on that level, and, you know, they know who each other are,

02:41but no, they have not been in the ring together.