By: Sean Crose
It should be an exciting Saturday night of boxing, as prominent super middleweight David Benavidez takes on longtime popular contender David Lemieux at the Gila River Arena in Glendale, Arizona. The scheduled 12 round bout will be for the WBC Interim World Super Middleweight Title and will be the main event of a Showtime card that will begin airing live at 10 PM eastern time. If anything, this fight should bring with it entertainment value, as both men know how to bring the heat. Neither, frankly, is apt to be in a boring fight. On top of that, there’s a lot on the line for both mean heading into tonight’s battle.
Benavidez is a big puncher looking for a big fight. He’s wanted a piece of Canelo for a while now and certainly wouldn’t mind squaring off against Caleb Plant. He’s not facing a light touch in Lemieux however, a hard hitting Canadian who likes to brawl. If the year 2022 has shown us anything so far, it’s that fans should always be ready for the unexpected. With that in mind, however, Benavidez is clearly and rightfully the favorite walking into this evening’s match. Being eight years younger, two and a half inches taller, and perhaps even more powerful than Lemieux makes it hard to bet against the Phoenix native.
Yet Lemieux has something in his possession that Benavidez doesn’t – big fight experience. While the undefeated Benavidez has knocked out all but three of his twenty-five opponents, Lemieux throughout the course of his forty-three fight career has faced names like Golovkin and Saunders. What’s more, although the Montreal based fighter has four loses on his resume, those loses either came from top names, occurred over a decade ago, or both. Such things matter, or at least they certainly can in the ring.
Benavidez last fought back in November when he stopped Kyrone Davis in seven. Lemieux was last in action almost a year ago, when he stopped David Zegarra in two back in June (whether or not ring rust plays a part in Lemieux’s performance this evening remains to be seen). In truth, this single fight will dictate the future of each man’s career. A loss for Lemieux might well cause irreversible damage to the thirty three year old’s future ring prospects. As for the twenty-five year old Benavidez, a loss would damage his reputation at a time when he wants to look as close to indestructible as possible in order to earn big money fights. Each fighter has a lot riding on this one.