Anthony Yarde will step into the ring in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia as a pretty big underdog on November 22, when he will challenge WBC light heavyweight champ David Benavidez. But while Benavidez will be the odds-on favourite to win, Yarde is keen to point out that he is the career light-heavy here.
Yarde, who spoke with talkBoxing, reminded fans to look back and see how Benavidez “was a little fatty” when he first began his time as a fighter. Benavidez, tall enough to one day move up to cruiserweight, caused havoc at super-middleweight before going up and becoming one of the elite at 175 pounds. But Yarde is not yet sure “The Mexican Monster” can take it as well as give it out, not at light heavyweight, anyway.
Yarde, 27-3(24), says he is genuinely interested as well as excited to find out if Benavidez can “handle someone attacking him.”
Can Yarde’s natural power trouble the unbeaten champion?
The fight will headline a stacked card in Riyadh (yet another one) and fans do expect fireworks. Yarde feels his natural strength and power, along with his being used to taking hefty punchers from established 175 pounders (Sergey Kovalev, Artur Beterbiev), will prove the difference in what he readily agrees will be a fun fight.
“If people go back and look, Benavidez was a little fatty when he went into the gym, he was big,” Londoner Yarde said. “He’s massive and I think they said he was going to be a cruiserweight when he started, but then he went down to super-middleweight. Now he’s coming up and could go to cruiser because he’s big. He’s taller than me so I’m not really focusing on the weight or anything like that, [I’m] just focusing on giving it to him. Seeing if he can actually handle someone attacking. It’s going to be fun to wait and see.”
Is Benavidez already looking past Yarde?
Benavidez, who is 30-0(24) overall but is just 2-0 as a light heavyweight, has thus far been able to take anything and everything his 175-pound foes have thrown at him; with Oleksandr Gvozdyk and David Morrell failing to put a serious dent in him (although Morrell did manage to score a knockdown over Benavidez back in February). Yarde is a real unit, and again, he’s a career-long light-heavy, and he can punch for sure. Maybe we will get a classic slugfest when he and Benavidez rumble in November.
Hopefully, we will indeed. Benavidez has said he is more than willing to fight Beterbiev after he beats Yarde, but Yarde is looking at tearing up any and all of Benavidez’s plans. Does the November 22 fight have the smell of an upset to it? Is Benavidez looking past Yarde and not giving him enough respect? Maybe.
