PPV.COM’s Jim Lampley’s Benavidez vs Morrell Pre-Fight Analysis
Hall of Fame boxing broadcaster Jim Lampley returns to ringside on Saturday, Feb. 1, where he will continue his role as co-host of PPV.COM‘s exclusive viewer chat, in real time, throughout PPV.COM‘s HD live stream of the David Benavidez vs. David Morrell light heavyweight world championship event in Las Vegas (8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT). Below, please find Jim’s pre-fight […] The post PPV.COM’s Jim Lampley’s Benavidez vs Morrell Pre-Fight Analysis appeared first on BlackSportsOnline.
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Hall of Fame boxing broadcaster Jim Lampley returns to ringside on Saturday, Feb. 1, where he will continue his role as co-host of PPV.COM‘s exclusive viewer chat, in real time, throughout PPV.COM‘s HD live stream of the David Benavidez vs. David Morrell light heavyweight world championship event in Las Vegas (8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT).
Below, please find Jim’s pre-fight analysis. Feel free to use all or any part of it, but please mention the live stream of the fight will be available at PPV.COM, which does not require a subscription.
Lampley’s legendary career has included working on 14 Olympics and 30 years calling fights for HBO Sports. His memoir, IT HAPPENED!: A Uniquely Lucky Life in Sports Television (Matt Holt Books), is available for pre-order at most major book retailers, including Amazon and Barnes & Noble® in the U.S., and Amazon.co.uk in the United Kingdom. It will be released on April 15.
Jim Lampley’s Analysis of Benavidez vs. Morrell
“For the past two years, “the two Davids” — as knowledgeable boxing followers refer to them — have loomed as the most logical threats to Canelo Álvarez’s competitive dominance in the generalized super middleweight to light heavyweight neighborhood, whether we are talking about the 168-pound weight limit where Canelo still most frequently appears, or 175 pounds, where Benavidez and Morrell are set to meet February 1, in Las Vegas. Because he is an American fighter with a legitimate knockout artist résumé, Benavidez is the bigger name. Because he is a southpaw fighter with a Cuban amateur pedigree, Morrell is regarded by some experts as the more formidable technical challenge. And because neither has yet persuaded Canelo, the sport’s premier economic attraction, to meet up in the ring, they are taking the alternate path to escalating dollars by fighting each other. The winner is a near-certain bet to call out Canelo in the post-fight interview.
“Styles still make fights, and both Benavidez and Morrell have a case to make in that regard. Fans of the Phoenix-bred Benavidez, son of a boxing trainer and schooled for stardom all his ring life, can point to gushing media enthusiasm (including that of this reporter) for his unbridled two-fisted power and the spectacular string of knockouts it produced. But in his last assignment, at 175 pounds against the taller, longer Oleksandr Gvozdyk, Benavidez was required to accept that no knockout finish was in the offing and work his way to a solid unanimous decision, prompting this observer to borrow in the late rounds a frequent observation from former HBO colleague Larry Merchant: “sometimes the job is to just win this one, then look great the next time out.” It may not be any easier to look “great” against Morrell than was the case against Gvozdyk.
“The underlying reality of Benavidez vs Gvozdyk, which the Mexican American “Monster” acknowledged in advance, was that the two of them had sparred quite a number of rounds within the past couple of years, so there was no element of surprise for either to exploit. In boxing, familiarity can breed equality, and while Benavidez got off to a good start in the fight, an objective observer might have seen the last six or seven rounds to be pretty close to even. For the Las Vegas crowd and the American audience, hyped to believe Benavidez was on the verge of breaking big toward the popularly expected showdown with Canelo, disappointment was an available response, and that showed up in some media responses too. But a win is a win, and there was no serious dispute regarding the decision, and now it is in the rearview mirror as “El Monstro” prepares to try to again look monstrous — the way he looked in violently dismantling the oft-avoided tricky southpaw Demetrius Andrade several months before. But like Gvozdyk, Morrell has a highly respectable pedigree both amateur and professional, and it is way too soon for Benavidez to begin focusing on Álvarez and all the dollars and acclaim he implies. If the American David can beat the Cuban David, he’ll surely get chances to look great down the road. The assignment hasn’t changed: win this one, any way he can.
“If the fight were to take place in Havana, Morrell would be the favorite. If you are in the school of thought that any southpaw fighter with talent and real power is a formidable opponent regardless of how talented and accomplished the opponent, Morrell IS the favorite. He arguably matches Benavidez in shot for shot power and has the technical advantage of fighting out of the southpaw stance. Morrell has unequivocally stated he is more dangerous than previous Benavidez opponents Caleb Plant and Jermall Charlo. At this moment, with the fight fast approaching, no one is arguing with him.
“But just as Benavidez calmed his following down a bit by going the distance with Gvozdyk, Morrell duplicated that result in his most recent outing against Bosnian American Radivoje Kalajdzic. The scores in that unanimous decision were roughly equal to those in Benavidez-Gvozdyk. They were respectable wins for Saturday’s main event fighters, but they brought no rave superstar reviews. They brought this now-logical, even necessary meeting of Benavidez and Morrell.
“Both these fighters have noteworthy punching power and respectable boxing skills. Both have been in against other top ten type talents and produced needed wins. Both were, to some degree, born for this. If there is a difference which can influence what goes on in the ring, it might well be incentive: boxers’ lives constitute a 24-hour-a-day business pursuit, and as a Mexican-American with a vast and growing fan following, the pride of the Phoenix area is on the threshold of what might become a nearly unique level of fame and earning power for the 175-pound weight class. Morrell can’t logically dream those same dreams. The logical pick is Benavidez by decision or late-round TKO.”
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