Don’t hold your breathe for seeing a Caleb Plant vs. David Benavidez super middleweight unification in 2020.
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.
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.”
Tyson Fury posted on Instagram a photo of himself, SugarHill Steward and Andy Lee. and said: “Getting the old team back up and running.’’
It looks as if Tyson Fury’s new trainer is SugarHill Steward, a nephew of the late Emanuel Steward.
Hours after news broke Sunday that Fury had split with Ben Davison, Fury posted a photo on Instagram of him, SugarHill Steward and former middleweight champion Andy Lee. It included a caption that said: “Getting the old team back up and running.’’
Davison confirmed early Sunday that he would no longer be in Fury’s corner. With only 10 weeks before a February heavyweight rematch with Deontay Wilder, Fury moved quickly to find a new trainer.
Fury, who is scheduled to fight Wilder on Feb. 22, got to know SugarHill Steward while training in Detroit at the Kronk Gym in 2009. His name then was Javan “Sugar’’ Hill. He formally changed it last year, in honor of Steward, the Hall of Fame trainer who died in 2012.
SugarHill Steward worked with former light heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson after his mentor’s death. He also has been in the corner for super middleweight Anthony Dirrell and heavyweight Charles Martin.
Badou Jack is scheduled to face veteran Jean Pascal on the Gervonta Davis-Yuriorkis Gamboa card Dec. 28, his first fight in almost a year.
Consider the last seven opponents that former super middleweight champ Badou Jack has faced: Anthony Dirrell, George Groves, Lucian Bute, James DeGale, Nathan Cleverly, Adonis Stevenson and Marcus Browne.
Who faces a gauntlet like that in this day and age? Precious few.
Indeed, if any fighter deserves an easy opponent, it’s Jack. So who will the 36-year-old Swede fight on the Gervonta Davis-Yuriorkis Gamboa card Dec. 28 in Atlanta on Showtime? Jean Pascal, another tough veteran coming off an upset victory over Browne in August.
It never ends.
“I’m getting older,” Jack said on The PBC Podcast. “I might deserve a tune-up fight. When I fight better opposition, I step up my game more, I fight better. My first loss … I fought a journeyman (Derek Edwards). I wasn’t really 100 percent. And that’s when accidents happen. … I fight my best when I fight top guys.”
Jack (22-2-3, 13 KOs) fought a top guy last January, Browne, who won a wide decision at least in part because of a gruesome cut in the middle of Jack’s forehead – the result of an accidental head butt in the seventh round – that bled profusely.
Badou Jack is hard at work preparing for his fight against Jean Pascal on Dec. 28 in Atlanta on Showtime. Sean Michael Ham / Mayweather Promotions
Jack fought hard the remainder of the fight but, having fallen behind in the early rounds, he couldn’t make up the lost ground.
“I should’ve won that fight,” Jack said. “… He’s a front runner. He always looks good in the beginning. He’s fast, athletic. I break you down. Usually I’m better in the later rounds. He won some of the early rounds. I won maybe one round or two before the cut. And then I got the cut. I couldn’t even see for six, seven rounds. He still couldn’t do nothing.
“It’s in the past, a learning experience. I shouldn’t have lost that fight, though. It is what it is.”
Of course, Jack went into the fight with the reputation of being a tough guy – remember that gauntlet – but he enhanced his image with his determination to persevere through one of the worst gashes in recent memory.
“It’s crazy, people giving me … more credit for that fight than any of my good wins,” he said. “And that was my worst fight in my pro career. Just because I showed heart and kept fighting with that cut.
“That’s something you can’t teach. You’re either a fighter, you’re either born with it or not.”
Jack, returning from a bad cut, will have been out of the ring for almost a year when he takes on Pascal. Sean Michael Ham / Mayweather Promotions
Jack certainly remains a fighter, even in his mid-30s. He said he doesn’t feel a sense of urgency in spite of his age. The cut has healed well, he said. In fact, doctors cleared him to fight a few months after the Browne fight.
And he said he feels as if he’s back on track after the setback. He’s confident going into the fight with Pascal (34-6-1, 20 KOs).
“I don’t feel no pressure,” he said. “… I still feel young. Even though (Jean Pascal) is only a year older than me, he’s been a pro longer than me. I have only 10 year in the pro game and 26, 27 fights, whatever I’ve got. I don’t feel no pressure. But I definitely need to win this fight, of course.”
Jack has begun to think about the legacy he will leave. He held a major 168-pound title from 2015 to 2017 and won what the WBA calls its “regular” 175-pound title in 2017. Boxing Junkie doesn’t recognize that belt.
“I want to define my legacy,” Jack said. “I feel good. I feel good in the gym. I felt like s—t in my last fight because of some mistakes that happened in camp and this thing with (Adonis) Stevenson happened right before I started camp. I don’t want to make excuses.
“Right now, I feel great in the gym. As far as running, rounds, letting my hands go … I’m doing great numbers. On fight night we’ll see what happens. I’d love to become a three-division world champion.”
David Benavidez said he wants to fight Callum Smith in a super middleweight title-unification bout.
David Benavidez evidently wants fellow titleholder Callum Smith.
The two-time super middleweight champ said he’d like to fight Smith (27-0, 19 knockouts) after watching the Englishman’s tightly contested bout with John Ryder on Nov. 23, which Smith won by decision.
Many observers thought Ryder deserved the decision.
“It seemed like he was having a lot of trouble in the fight,” Benavidez said, according to a WBC release. “I thought he would look really impressive but that wasn’t what happened.
“I feel like I’m a better fighter than him and he’s a perfect opponent for me. I saw things in his style that I could use in my favor.”
Benavidez (22-0, 19 KOs) returned from a one-year suspension to take Anthony Dirrell’s title by a ninth-round knockout in September.
