When Joshua Buatsi, a British light-heavyweight, was asked to comment on what was happening between David Benavidez and Anthony Yarde on Saturday night in Saudi Arabia, he spoke on behalf of not only himself, but also Yarde, his countryman, and the entire light-heavyweight division. He said, between rounds five and six, that to improve his chances in the fight Yarde needed to “land some jabs” and make Benavidez “think a bit more”. But he then quickly followed this statement with the immortal disclaimer: “Easier said than done.”
It was, for Buatsi, now clear from his ringside position that watching David Benavidez go about his work was quite different from actually experiencing it in the ring. Without fighting the American himself, he knew enough already, having watched him demoralise Yarde, to know that talking about the various methods of beating the WBC champion was not the same as executing these methods when it mattered.
These days most who approach fighting Benavidez will now know this, of course. He is, after all, no unknown entity, nor a newcomer to this kind of level. He has, in fact, won 31 fights as a pro and lifted world titles in not one but two weight classes (super-middleweight and light-heavyweight). Yet the truth is, for anyone preparing to fight Benavidez, there must always be an element of ignorance or delusion to have them think that they will be the one to do what no man before them has been able to do: stop Benavidez. Investing in either their skills or their power, these men, these challengers, are each motivated to believe they have seen chinks in Benavidez and that they will be the one to exploit these chinks when in the ring with him.
Yarde, for his part, was really no different. He, along with his trainer, Tunde Ajayi, talked a good fight going in and believed every word. They felt that Yarde’s experience of falling short in previous world title attempts – against Sergey Kovalev in 2019 and Artur Beterbiev in 2023 – would stand him in good stead, experience-wise, when trying to climb that same mountain again with Benavidez. There was belief, in other words, not only in his ability to pull off the upset but also in timing and the concept of three as a lucky number.
And yet, Yarde, a thoughtful type, is no fool, either. Never, although confident, did he underestimate the size of the task facing him on Saturday night, nor the pedigree of the champion he would need to dethrone. Instead, he was prepared and willing to find out if what he long suspected was true. He was prepared and willing to find out if David Benavidez was as difficult to keep off as so many have claimed.
“Congrats to Benavidez, a serious fighter,” Yarde said the next day, having been stopped by the champion in seven rounds. “I knew what I was getting myself into, but I thought I could pull it off and shock the world. But he was just the better man. That’s me being honest.”
What Buatsi saw from his seat at ringside, and what Yarde felt from his unenviable position in the ring, was a machine-like relentlessness which borders on ignorance. They saw a man, in Benavidez, who was content to take one to give one (or two) and whose hand speed and stamina are atypical at the weight at which he currently campaigns. Whenever, for instance, Yarde wanted to escape in the ring, or just rest, he would immediately notice that Benavidez picked those same moments to increase his own intensity and output. This, of course, made it extremely difficult for Yarde to do anything other than react to whatever pace Benavidez set or whichever direction in the ring he wanted them to go.
Early on, this was no issue for Yarde. He actually navigated the first few rounds okay. But the problem is, existing with a champion like Benavidez should never be mistaken for controlling him or getting the upper hand. Instead, the more rounds that passed, the more Yarde’s inability to win them while in survival mode started to become a major concern, one that would soon lead to a sense of urgency and panic in both his corner and his body. It was one thing to hang with Benavidez and occasionally get through with smart, meaningful counters, but it was another thing to stop him coming forward or make a significant dent in him.
Those things Yarde, for all his bravery, could never achieve on Saturday. He was never overawed by the occasion, or the size of the challenge, but still he had no answers; still he had no conceivable way of asserting himself in the fight. If, for argument’s sake, he committed more to the jab, like Buatsi suggested (but never Yarde’s forte), he would perhaps only expose himself more to counters and encourage Benavidez to punch with him. If, on the other hand, he went into his shell completely, which he seldom did, there would be nothing for Benavidez to worry about when encroaching his space.
In the end, Yarde found himself stuck – stuck between styles, ideas, a rock and a hard place. Though he showed no fear, and though he tried to meet Benavidez in exchanges, it wasn’t long before it all caught up with the Brit. The pace of the fight caught up with him and so too did Benavidez, whose bizarre 18-punch salvo in round four – which saw him hold Yarde with his right hand while pummelling him with his left – was a sign of both how the distance had now been closed and how Benavidez was set to bully the supposedly bigger man.
After that incident, it was all one-way traffic. Now Yarde was not only put in his shell by Benavidez but he had started to show the effects of his punches in a way he had been able to disguise in the earlier rounds. Now, by the seventh, the round in which the fight ended, Yarde had a bloodied nose and, worse, the energy Benavidez brings – foreboding, inevitable – had now started to permeate and suffocate him.
The feeling then was that it was only a matter of time. That feeling had started in round one, when we saw how composed Benavidez was in the face of a spirited challenger, and all it did was increase round by round, correlating with the rate at which Yarde’s output dropped and his confidence ebbed. It seemed almost cruel, the way that happened. Because no matter how well Yarde and his team thought he was doing at the start, each of us, including Butasi, knew better than to believe it would amount to something tangible. It just never would. Surviving, after all, is not the same as thriving and this every fighter knows. In fact, it could even be argued that there are few things scarier in boxing than when a fighter discovers that everything they spent 12 weeks planning – in the gym, with sparring partners – does not work when the moment to execute arrives. “Easier said than done,” said Buatsi, speaking for them all, and he was right. In the case of David Benavidez, that would appear to be the feeling.
Which now begs the question: Who is next to try? Someone like Buatsi, still rebuilding from his loss to Callum Smith in February, knows better than to do more than observe and appreciate Benavidez from afar at this stage and the same will be true of many light-heavyweights not named Dmitry Bivol or Artur Beterbiev. That leaves Benavidez in a bit of a quandary if fights against Bivol and Beterbiev cannot be made.
It is maybe for that reason he is already talking about moving up in weight – again – for a fight next May against Gilberto Ramirez, the WBA and WBO cruiserweight champion. That, should it materialise, would present Benavidez with a host of new problems, both in terms of size and style. It would give Benavidez, 31-0 (28 KOs), the chance to become a world champion in a third weight class and it would suggest, moreover, that the only way to stop Benavidez at this point is to let his own ambition get the better of him.
In boxing, that is a well-trodden path and Benavidez, if he stumbles, would not be the first champion to move up one too many weights in search of challenges and greatness. Alternatively, however, it is just as likely that his relentless approach, hand speed, and stamina is as much a problem for cruiserweights as it has proven to be for light-heavyweights and super-middleweights. There is, as always, only one way to find out if you’re David Benavidez. You do it, try it, give it a go. You don’t just say it. That’s safe. That’s easy. We can all do that.
