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Trainer Stephen Edwards believes David Morrell does not have the ring IQ to defeat interim WBC light heavyweight champion David Benavidez in their February 1 fight.
Stephen thinks 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 if that doesn’t work.
Edwards notes that Morrell struggled in his Aug. 3 fight against Radivoje Kalajdzic in his debut at 175, but was never in danger of losing. In fact, Morrell dominated every round of the fight, but occasionally landed big shots from Hot Rod, which he can hit.
This guy has better power than Benavidez, and Morrell has had to be cautious at times. Mostly, he was nailing Hot Rod at will with hard shots and hurt him multiple times.
Stephen faced ‘The Mexican Monster’ Benavidez (29-0, 24 KOs) when he defeated his fighter Caleb Plant last year on March 25, 2023, and it didn’t go well for them. He came away from that fight impressed with Benavidez.
Plant was too weak and small for Benavidez, who looked like a cruiserweight in the ring in that fight,
Morrell vs Benavidez will headline on February 1st at 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 is facing someone in a 50-50 fight who has a chance to beat him.
The closest he has come so far to an opponent who had a chance to beat him was in his last fight against Oleksandr Gvozdyk in his debut at 175 on June 15. Benavidez got tired early in this fight and really got pounded by Gvozdyk from rounds 7-12.
“This is a fight that David Morrell can win, but I don’t know if he will,” Stephen Edwards told the Fighthype about the fight between David Benavidez and David Morrell on February 1st. “He had problems with ‘Hot Rod’, but he wasn’t losing.
“There’s a difference when you go back to your corner and you don’t know if you’re up. I have to see what his adjustments are like when he’s not winning the fight or when the other guy is putting him under pressure mentally where he starts to create a little bit of doubt.
“I’m very impressed with David Morrell, but it’s based on his toughness, his strength and his size. He is too old to fight at 168. He’s a big boy. I’m really impressed with him, but a lot of the guys he was fighting were a lot smaller than him and he doesn’t have to go into his bag of tricks to rely on other things like his IQ.
Like Benavidez, Morrell was too big for the 168-pound division, but he’s not fighting at 175. Both fought smaller fighters at super-middleweight. It wasn’t just Morrell who fought a lot of smaller guys. Benavidez was always bigger than his opponents during the 11 years he fought at 168.
“I’m not saying I don’t have it, but I haven’t seen it yet,” Edwarda said of Morrell’s ring IQ. “I’m going to pick David Benavidez. I think his IQ is very underrated. His defense is underrated. People say he’s easy to hit, but when you fight like him, you’re going to get hit when you walk up to a guy. Also, he’s a big guy, but he takes a lot of punches.
“He’s very good at punching you. He can counter. He’s very aware of his defense. He’s not in there letting his head go back all over the place. When you see him get hit, look at him close. Even when he gets hit, he’s got his hands up. So the punches are going to go through his gloves,” Edwards said of Benavidez.
