David Benavidez doesn’t think performance-enhancing drugs would’ve helped Jose Uzcategui on Saturday night.
Nevertheless, Benavidez believes Uzcategui should suffer serious consequences for testing positive for Recombinant erythropoietin (EPO), which forced Al Haymon’s Premier Boxing Champions to remove him from the Benavidez bout two weeks ago. The former WBC super middleweight champion considers Uzcategui’s PED use a sign that he lacked confidence as he prepared for a 12-round fight against a relentless, strong, unbeaten, young opponent who is sure he would’ve become the first fighter to knock out the Venezuelan veteran in their IBF/WBC 168-pound elimination match.
“I think they have to give him a severe punishment, because he didn’t just get caught with anything,” Benavidez told BoxingScene.com. “He got caught with EPOs, you know, the [strongest] steroid there is for recovery and stamina. So, I mean, for him to go that far and do that, it just means that he was really scared. He knew what would happen in the fight.
“I feel like that wouldn’t have helped him anyway. I feel like I’m in tremendous shape and I’m a superior fighter. I have superior power, and I feel like it wouldn’t have really stopped me from knocking him out.”
Uzcategui, 30, has not yet been issued a suspension stemming from his failed test.
The 24-year-old Benavidez will square off against Uzcategui’s replacement, Kyrone Davis, in the main event of a “Showtime Championship Boxing” doubleheader Saturday night (9 p.m. ET; 6 p.m. PT). Benavidez (24-0, 21 KOs) and Davis (16-2-1, 6 KOs), of Wilmington, Delaware, will headline a nine-fight card at Footprint Center in Phoenix, Benavidez’s hometown.
Benavidez acknowledged Uzcategui’s removal from their fight was a letdown, but he is pleased at least that his next fight wasn’t rescheduled again. Benavidez and Uzcategui (31-4, 26 KOs) were supposed to fight August 28 at Footprint Center, but it was postponed 2½ months early in August because Benavidez contracted COVID-19.
“I’ve been a little bit disappointed, only because I trained so hard for this certain type of opponent,” Benavidez said. “And I think it would’ve looked very good, you know, me knocking this guy out on my resume because he’s an ex-world champion, he’s a strong fighter, he’s never been knocked out and he’s a well-known opponent. People know him, too. You know, his style is like my style. He likes to come forward and he has a lot of knockouts himself, so I was very disappointed to see him testing positive for EPOs, especially because he was trying to be really sneaky about it.
“You know, we had done four random drug tests prior to that, so the one that they caught him dirty with, that was the fifth one. So yeah, he was really trying to be sneaky about it. You know what I mean? It’s very unfortunate that had to happen and, you know, they had to change the opponent. But honestly, I’m very happy that the fight wasn’t rescheduled again and we still continued on this same date.”
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.