LAS VEGAS – David Benavidez’s relentless quest for history and competition culminated in both Saturday when he became the first to knock out Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez and to win an unprecedented triple crown of world titles.
Benavidez, 32-0 (26 KOs), defeated Ramirez by sixth-round TKO when the swollen-headed unified champion failed to rise from the canvas and yielded his WBO and WBA cruiserweight belts to the existing WBC light heavyweight titlist from Phoenix.
“I don’t care who it is," Benavidez said in the ring afterward. "No one can fuck with me.”
Answering Ramirez’s girth with “speed, power, movement and IQ,” Benavidez became the first male fighter to capture one of the four major titles as a super middleweight, light heavyweight and cruiserweight by dismantling a proud champion from Mexico whose lone prior defeat was to three-belt light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol.
The finishing sequence started with a hard left to Ramirez’s swelling right eye. It was followed by more head-jarring punishment that elicited crowd groans, and Benavidez rushed in for the end.
His head blows sent Ramirez, 48-2 (30 KOs), down for the second time of the night, and as referee Thomas Taylor rushed to count, Ramirez put a glove to his aching head. No comfort came. Only pain.
He nodded “no” to Taylor, and the fight was stopped with 1 second remaining in the frame.
Fulfilling his expectation that his hand-speed advantage would carry the night, Benavidez opened the bout by snapping a couple rights to Ramirez’s face and closing with a combination to the head.
The left-handed Ramirez countered by leaning into Benavidez and finding him with power punches. Yet it all looked like a trap after Benavidez closed the round impressively by landing hard shots on Ramirez’s head.
Rapid combinations by Benavidez scored for the judges, but Ramirez – who had never been knocked down – kept coming forward in the third.
A clean Ramirez uppercut was answered by a short left by Benavidez in the fourth.
And then Benavidez backed up Ramirez with a hammering right, freeing him to unleash all the hand speed he wanted to display – a combination that dropped Ramirez for the first time in his career on a left above the right eardrum.
A hard right uppercut by Benavidez in the fifth provoked Ramirez to throw combinations that Benavidez weathered and answered. Two rights to the head and a body shot cooled Ramirez’s desired response.
When it was over, Benavidez, 29, repeated that he’s here to bring the fans the best fights possible – which could include a showdown with Bivol later this year, or perhaps another cruiserweight title bout.
Of course, Benavidez knew that four-division champion Saul "Canelo" Alvarez was in the building, and couldn’t let the proud occasion pass without issuing one more challenge to the former light heavyweight champion who denied Benavidez a fight even when he was positioned as WBC No. 1 and mandatory contender.
“I see Canelo was in the building,” Benavidez said. “We can’t leave that fight on the table. I have the light heavyweight belt. We can fight at 175[lbs].”
After what everyone witnessed Saturday, that may stand as the one bit of unfinished business that remains for Benavidez.
Lance Pugmire is BoxingScene’s senior U.S. writer and an assistant producer for ProBox TV. Pugmire has covered boxing since the early 2000s, first at the Los Angeles Times and then at The Athletic and USA Today. He won the Boxing Writers’ Association of America’s Nat Fleischer Award in 2022 for career excellence.
