NEW YORK – Tom Brown witnessed the same outcomes from his television that his fighter, David Benavidez, saw from ringside in Saudi Arabia.

What Callum Smith’s riveting performance to deal Joshua Buatsi his first defeat means and what comes next for new undisputed 175lbs champion Dmitry Bivol and former champion Artur Beterbiev is still in flux.

“What a great fight that was, huh?” TGB Promotions head Brown asked, as if inviting the listener to guess whether the victorious former super middleweight champion Smith, 31-2 (22 KOs), or Bivol, 24-1 (12 KOs), is the most likely next foe for Phoenix’s Benavidez.

TGB Promotions works in unison with Benavidez promoter Sampson Lewkowicz to handle Benavidez’s bouts for Al Haymon’s Premier Boxing Champions, which staged his February 1 pay-per-view victory over David Morrell to add the WBA secondary belt to his WBC interim title.

This week, the WBC ordered Bivol to fight Benavidez, but Bivol has also been pointed to a Beterbiev trilogy fight by Saudi Arabia’s Turki Alalshikh.

“[Benavidez] has a great team behind him. He’ll get together with everyone at PBC and we’ll come up with a game plan over the next few weeks,” Brown said. “There’s no mad rush to get this going.” 

Smith may be an ideal foe. As a fellow former super middleweight champion performing strongly, Smith elevated himself to produce a strong showing against Buatsi, and his trainer, Buddy McGirt, told BoxingScene this week that Benavidez, 30-0 (24 KOs), would be an ideal next foe.

On Saturday, Alalshikh gave off a mixed signal by asking Haymon to permit Benavidez to fight, although it was unsure if he meant for Benavidez to fight in the Middle East or to fight Bivol.

“I don’t know anything about that. That’s their business,” Brown said. “God bless them. They put on a great show that was great for the sport. We’ll stay in our lane and do our stuff.”

Speaking of uncertain futures, Brown praised PBC’s Saturday night pay-per-view headliner, Gervonta “Tank” Davis, 30-0 (28 KOs), but added the 30-year-old WBA lightweight champion’s future will operate on “Tank time.”

Davis has simultaneously said he’s in need of a career break and expressed enthusiasm about fighting the likes of Ryan Garcia, Shakur Stevenson and Vasiliy Lomachenko.

“Right now, it’s all about Saturday night,” Brown said of Roach’s well-attended title defense against WBA 130lbs champion Lamont Roach Jnr. “This is no pushover. ‘Tank’ makes his own decisions. We’ll wait for the fight to happen. ‘Tank’ will talk to Al Haymon. He’s the boss of his own career. He’s earned it.”

Brown responded to the comment that underdog Roach has had two months to gain comfort in moving up a weight class by scolding, “you’re acting like he’s jumping from 140lbs to 154.

“‘Tank’ Davis was 3 ¼ pounds over the [super-featherweight] limit in his last fight. It’s the same damn weight. It’s not like he had to build up like [Terence] Crawford going from 154 to 168. This is a lot different than that. [Roach] is a smart fighter, has a great amateur pedigree. Give him some respect. He’s a reigning world champion.

“‘Tank’ makes his own decisions. If he wants to stay active, he’ll sit down and decide what to do,” Brown said.

Does Brown favor someone at 135lbs, perhaps the unbeaten Stevenson or fellow three-division champion Lomachenko?

“I’m not going to go there. It will be what ‘Tank’ decides,” Brown said. “You don’t interrupt a fighter this close to a fight. We’ll see where it goes if he comes out of this fight healthy.”

PBC’s next bout will be a Prime Video non-pay-per-view headlined by the return of 154lbs unified champion Sebastian Fundora one year after he won the belt. Fundora will fight Chordale Booker at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. 

“Fundora has been off for a while, but the fighter of the year Usyk fought once in 2019, once in 2020, once in 2021, once in 2022 and once in 2023,” Brown said in defense of an injury and matchmaking delays hinged to the withdrawal of possible opponent Errol Spence Jnr. 

“People make too big a deal about inactivity. Would I like the guy to fight more? Of course. But people don’t understand what these fighters go through with injuries and everything else. There’s more than one way to skin a cat.”

In a conversation with BoxingScene last week, top junior-middleweight contender Serhii Bohachuk said Fundora is the best 154-pound fighter, over champions Crawford, Bakhram Murtazaliev and elite contender Vergil Ortiz Jnr.

“He’s a guy who’s been in there with a lot of them. That’s first-hand, so there it is,” Brown said.