Titleholders David Benavidez and Caleb Plant may be the best American super middleweights today, but don’t expect them to face each other anytime soon. As in, not in 2020.
Benavidez handler Sampson Lewkowicz shut down that possibility in a recent interview.
“A 2020 unification? I don’t believe so,” Lewkowicz told Boxing Junkie. “I believe we need more time”
In other words, the fight needs to marinate, stew, percolate – you get the point – until it reaches a point in which demand exceeds supply. Maximizing the money that the fight could produce for the fighters is Lewkowicz’s priority.
“I believe two of the best American super middleweights are supposed to be on pay-per-view and either one is not ready for that right now,” he said.
Hopefully, that doesn’t mean the fighters will face anonymous journeymen for the next 12 months or so. Plant is scheduled to fight an unknown German super middleweight named Vincent Feigenbutz on Feb. 15 in his hometown of Nashville.
Benavidez’s next fight has not been set, although Lewkowicz noted that he is trying to negotiate something for “March, maybe April.” It won’t involve super middleweight contender Avani Yildirim, who was expected to take on Benavidez after his controversial technical loss to Anthony Dirrell last February.
“(Yildirim) is not ready, so we’re trying to work out the details,” Lewkowicz said. “I don’t know if Yildirim got hurt. I don’t know, that’s what I heard.”
Lewkowicz’s other current titleholder is newly crowned Dominican junior middleweight Jeison Rosario, who upset Julian Williams on Jan. 18.