David Benavidez turned down a chance to fight Terence Crawford. The undefeated super-middleweight champ said no to a bout at middleweight because he couldn't make the 160-pound limit.
Benavidez, known as 'El Monstruo', talked about the offer in a chat with Sean Zittel. He said:
"I'll tell you, he did mention one fight… He wanted me to go down to 160 to fight Crawford. I'm like bro I cannot do that. If I could be able to make 160 that would've been amazing, but I can't. I don't remember the last time I weighed 160 … I would love to share the ring with him just not at 160."
The offer came from Turki Alalshikh, who's connected to Riyadh Season. Alalshikh wants to set up fights between Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez and both Benavidez and Crawford.
Crawford, a champ in four weight classes, wants to move up two divisions to fight Canelo. He's said he'll only fight at 168 pounds against the unified super-middleweight champ. He's turned down fights with Benavidez before.
Canelo hasn't seemed keen on either fight. But he might change his mind for the right money, maybe in Saudi Arabia.
Benavidez gave up his spot as the mandatory challenger for Canelo. Now he's looking at moving up to light-heavyweight. He's got his eye on the winner of the undisputed 175-pound fight between Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol.
The funny thing is, Crawford might have a better shot at fighting Canelo now. That's despite Benavidez chasing that fight for a long time and having a stronger claim to it.
