Trainer Stephen Edwards believes David Morrell doesn’t have the ring IQ to defeat WBC interim light heavyweight champion David Benavidez in their Feb. 1 fight.
Stephen believes WBA “regular” 175-pound champion Morrell (11-0, 9 KOs) relies too much on his power and explosiveness and doesn’t have a bag of tricks he can rely on when that happens doesn’t work.
Edwards notes that Morrell struggled in his 175 debut against Radivoje Kalajdzic on August 3, but was never in danger of losing. In fact, Morrell dominated every round of the fight, but he occasionally took big hits from Hot Rod, who can throw punches.
This guy has more power than Benavidez and Morrell had to be careful at times. Most of the time, he knocked Hot Rod down with hard punches at will, injuring him several times.
Stephen faced “The Mexican Monster” Benavidez (29-0, 24 KOs) last year on March 25, 2023 when he defeated fellow fighter Caleb Plant and it didn’t go well for them. He came out of that fight impressed by Benavidez.
Plant was too weak and small for Benavidez, who looked like a cruiserweight in the ring in this fight.
Morrell vs. Benavidez will headline February 1 on PBC Prime Video PPV at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. This is the first fight in Benavidez’s 11-year career where he faces someone who has a chance of beating him in a 50-50 fight.
The closest he has ever come to an opponent who had a chance of beating him was in his last fight against Oleksandr Gvozdyk in his debut at 175 on June 15. Benavidez tired early in this fight and was really beaten down by Gvozdyk in rounds 7-12.
“This is a fight David Morrell can win, but I don’t know if he will,” said Stephen Edwards Fight hype about the fight between David Benavidez and David Morrell on February 1st. “He had problems with ‘Hot Rod,’ but he didn’t lose.
“There’s a difference when you go back to your corner and don’t know if you’re up. I need to see what his adjustments are when he doesn’t win the fight or when the other guy puts him under mental pressure so there’s a little bit of doubt.
“I’m very impressed with David Morrell, but he kind of relies on his grit, his strength and his size. He’s way too big to fight at 168. He’s a big guy. I’m very impressed with him, but a lot of the guys he fought were so much smaller than him that he doesn’t have to dip into his bag of tricks to rely on other things like his IQ.
Like Benavidez, Morrell was too big for the 168-pound class, but he doesn’t fight at 175 pounds. Both fought at super middleweight against smaller fighters. It wasn’t just Morrell fighting a lot of smaller guys. Benavidez has always been bigger than his opponents in the 11 years he fought at 168.
“I’m not saying he doesn’t have it, but I haven’t seen it yet,” Edwarda said of Morrell’s ring IQ. “I will pick David Benavidez. I think his IQ is very underestimated. His defense is underrated. People say he’s easy to hit, but if you fight like he does, if you go at a guy, you’re going to get hit. Plus, he’s a big guy, but he takes a lot of hits.
“He’s really good at hitting you. He can counter. He is very conscious of his defense. He’s not in there letting his head get thrown all over the place. When you see him get hit, look at him closely. Even when he gets hit, his hands are up. So the punches have to go through his gloves. He deflects a lot of power,” Edwards said of Benavidez.
