Sunday, March 14, 2021

Boxing Challenge: Benavidez Bullies Ellis

   Showtime and the PBC had a very difficult task as they counter-programmed DAZN and Matchroom's card with Juan Francisco Estrada and Roman Gonzalez at the top and even though their slate wasn't able to match the card in quality or importance, PBC got the one result that they needed most.

David Benavidez lost the first round to Ronald Ellis and would lose no others until the referee was forced to end the fight in the eleventh round to save Ellis from further punishment.

Give Ellis credit for giving his all throughout the fight, but he was out of his element against the larger and more powerful boxer.

Other than Benavidez not knocking Ellis down, no one could have asked for more from the talented Benavidez, who is establishing himself as the fighter that boxing pundits and fans would want to be paired with Canelo Alvarez.

Alvarez has business in May against WBO champion Billy Joe Saunders in his attempt to add that title to the WBA and WBC championships that he already owns., but Benavidez has placed his name in the conversation for a fall match if Alvarez defeats Saunders as he is expected to do.

The question could come down to this- Would Alvarez face Benavidez in the fall, in what would be a fight of huge interest in Mexico (Benavidez's father was born in Mexico) or would he select IBF champion Caleb Plant in a fight that would give Alvarez the final title to complete unification?

Benavidez would be the more exciting fight in the ring, he is a bigger (Plant is the same height, but Benavidez has a longer reach) fighter, and with both fighters being of Mexican heritage, the fight is the more likely of the two to receive larger media attention.

The argument for fighting Plant is straight-forward- he would have the final piece of the championship puzzle and Benavidez could be available for the fight following Plant.

I would tend to believe that Plant would be the choice, but Benavidez did everything that he needed to stake his claim as the natural opponent and could be the possible opponent.

In the co-feature, Isaac Cruz defeated Jose Matias Romero via unanimous decision in a WBA lightweight eliminator.

I scored Cruz a 115-112 winner with Cruz losing a point during the fight.

The junior middleweight opener saw veteran Terrell Gausha score his biggest win in a while when he caught JaMontay Clark with a counter right in the second round that knocked Clark down and when a dazed Clark rose and tried to hold off Gausha, Gausha muscled Clark into a corner and fired away to force a stoppage.

The win likely will move Gausha into a fight somewhere up the ladder in the mostly-PBC controlled division in the future.

In the boxing challenge, I scored five points to Ramon Malpica's three with the Isaac Cruz win making the difference.

I increased my overall lead to 28-25.

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