David Benavidez is the truth, and he’s earned the marquee fights

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - MAY 02: David Benavidez poses with title belts after defeating WBA/WBO cruiserweight champion Gilberto Ramirez at T-Mobile Arena on May 02, 2026 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Benavidez took the titles with a sixth-round TKO. (Photo by Steve Marcus/Getty Images) | Getty Images David Benavidez has long had the ability of a top-tier fighter.

It was there when he was 20 years old and won his first world title, beating Ronald Gavril for the vacant WBC super middleweight title in 2017. It was still there when he was stripped of that belt for testing positive for cocaine. And it was still there when he won it back, and when he missed weight and was stripped again in 2020.

And it was there when he came back from that and won the interim version of that title and tried, desperately, to get Canelo Alvarez to fight him. When he starched David Lemieux. When he beat Caleb Plant in what was the biggest fight Benavidez could land in 2023.

When he took Demetrius Andrade apart, and when he gave up on the Canelo chase at 168 and moved up to 175, winning another interim belt and hoping to get Dmitry Bivol in the ring for the real thing, but Bivol vacated instead. It was certainly there tonight, when he decimated Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez to win the WBA and WBO cruiserweight titles, jumping up another 25 lbs in weight to take the biggest and best challenge he could actually find. Canelo, repeatedly, said that Benavidez wasn’t a big enough star.