Jose Benavidez Jr. was shot in the right leg in August 2016 while walking his dog in Phoenix. Doctors told him he’d never fight again. Benavidez defied that and has fought twice since the shooting. For that, we should applaud him.
As brave as he was in overcoming that scary moment, that doesn’t mean he will be able to conquer Terence Crawford when the two square off for Crawford’s welterweight title Saturday from CHI Health Center in Omaha, Neb. (on ESPN).
Crawford (33-0, 24 KOs) is one of the top pound-for-pound fighters in the world. Benavidez (27-0, 18 KOs) is no slouch, but he hasn’t fought anyone even close to the caliber of Crawford.
Still, Benavidez seems confident.
“It’s time to show the world what I can do,” Benavidez said. “I’ve been waiting for this my whole life.”
We’re sure he has, but he has ticked off Crawford during this promotion. That may not have been the smartest thing Benavidez has done.
It started in Corpus Christi, Texas, ahead of Benavidez taking on Matthew Strode in his first fight back in February.
“He just came up to me, told me that I was ducking him and I never wanted to sign a fight, I never signed a contract, and I was scared of him and he was going to knock me out,” Crawford said.
“So I told him, I said, ‘Man, don’t you got a fight? You need to focus on your fight before you focus on me right now. You need to be focused on your fight.’ Then just a little heated discussion.”
Crawford apparently didn’t think a lot of it at the time, knowing the sport the way he does.
“That comes with the territory when you’ve got people that, you know, want your spot,” said Crawford, a former undisputed junior welterweight champion looking to make the first defense of his welterweight belt. “They want to get the opportunity or the chance to prove their worthiness, to make a name for themselves. So that’s how I take it.
“He’s trying to piggyback off of my name to make himself bigger.”
But to Crawford, there is no question – things have truly become bitter between the two.
“It’s been real since day one, since the fight has been announced,” he said. “It ain’t been nothing but real.”
Talking trash is not new in boxing, and Crawford has heard his share of it before making opponents pay for their big mouths. Even so, Crawford isn’t surprised Benavidez has taken this approach.
“No, he’s confident in himself and his abilities,” the Omaha resident said. “And on top of that, I feel as if he’s trying to boost his confidence up even more by telling himself these thoughts in his head that he’s one of the best.
“But come fight night, all that is going to be out the window and we’re going to have to fight. And then it’s going to be put up or shut up.”
Crawford, 31, has shown he can do it all. He can bang with the best. He can move if he wants, though the optics of that are not always a good thing. Remember his junior welterweight title-unification bout against Viktor Postol in July 2016? Crawford moved more than he ever has, turning what could have been a great fight into something less.
It’s like Crawford was thinking Postol might be the guy he didn’t want to go toe-to-toe with on a regular basis.
Heck, he would have stopped Postol inside the distance for sure had he attacked him more. Proof of that were Crawford’s two knockdowns of Postol in the fifth round.
Instead, we were subject to a less-than-thrilling fight that went all 12 rounds with Crawford winning by nine, 11 and 11 points on the scorecards.
It’s doubtful Crawford will be doing anything but aggressively trying to break down Benavidez, who basically is saying to Crawford, bring it on.
“I am here,” Benavidez said. “I am going to take over this city, and I am going to take his belt. I’m not scared.”
Furthermore …
“I don’t see anything special in him,” Benavidez said of Crawford. “I don’t know why everyone hypes him up so much.”
Benavidez, 26, is likely going to find out all about that Saturday.
“I’m just going to go out there and shut him up,” Crawford said. “That’s it. That’s all.”
Etc.
Shakur Stevenson, a silver-medal winner for Team USA at the 2016 Rio Games, will put his undefeated record on the line when he tangles with Viorel Simion (21-2, 9 KOs) of Romania underneath Crawford-Benavidez. Stevenson, of Newark, N.J., is 8-0 with four knockouts. … Middleweight contender Jason Quigley (14-0, 11 KOs) of Ireland will take on Freddy Hernandez (34-9, 22 KOs) of Mexico in the main event Thursday from Fantasy Springs Casino in Indio (on ESPN2). … The Oct. 27 fight at Madison Square Garden between Sergiy Derevyanchenko (12-0, 10 KOs) of Ukraine and Daniel Jacobs (34-2, 29 KOs) of Brooklyn for a vacant middleweight should be a good one. This is expected to be HBO’s final boxing telecast, as it recently announced it is getting out of the boxing business.
