David Benavidez may not have secured the blockbuster Cinco de Mayo weekend fight with the specific Mexican opponent he had long sought to draw into the ring.
But he just might have landed the better one.
Benavidez was joined at the Park MGM in Las Vegas on Saturday by Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez and their respective teams in an introductory press conference to announce his challenge of Ramirez’s unified cruiserweight championship scheduled for May 2 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
In a wild turn, the event was respectful, straightforward and wholly unexceptional – a welcome change from the hype jobs ahead of many other recent marquee fights. The difference: The fight itself should be TNT.
“I feel like I’m on the cusp of being the face of boxing,” Benavidez said. “And if Zurdo wins, his stock goes up. There’s greatness on the other side of that tunnel for both of us. So we’re gonna come extremely prepared.”
Although the fight, predictably, is being billed as an all-Mexico war, that’s neither quite accurate – Benavidez is of Mexican descent but was born in Arizona – nor necessary. These are certified world-class fighters who have already shared the ring as sparring partners whose come-forward styles and no-B.S. personas should leave behind nothing but pure, uncut boxing delirium.
“This is something I’ve been working toward for a long time,” Benavidez said. “We’ve had so many great sparring sessions, and I told Zurdo then, we’ll have to do this on pay-per-view one day. Now we’re going for two titles on May 2 and I’m very grateful.”
Fight fans, too, should give thanks. The unbeaten Benavidez, 31-0 (25 KOs), a current light heavyweight titleholder and former super middleweight belt holder, is a 29-year-old who throws cinder blocks and reliably delivers action fights. For years, he held out at 168lbs in hopes to lure Saul “Canelo” Alvarez into a megafight that likely would have landed on Cinco de Mayo or Mexican Independence Day weekend – Alvarez’s standing dates. Instead, Benavidez moved on and made a name for himself, and now will climb another division to take on the 35-year-old Ramirez, 48-1 (30 KOs), who long toiled in virtual anonymity but simply kept putting away everyone put in front of him. To date, Ramirez’s only career loss came in 2022, against current light heavyweight kingpin Dmitry Bivol.
Although Ramirez has a lot of miles on the odometer, he has won all four fights since the Bivol defeat – including most recently unanimous decisions over Chris Billam-Smith and Yuniel Dorticos to, respectively, win and defend the WBO belt he still holds.
“I knew this would happen eventually,” said Ramirez, from Mazatlan, Sinaloa, Mexico. “This is a dream come true. Right now is the right moment at 200 pounds. We’re going to feel comfortable and be at our best.”
Benavidez gave Ramirez work ahead of his 2016 whitewashing of super middleweight titleholder Arthur Abraham, calling them “great sessions” and saying he knew then that Ramirez was someone who would be around a long time. A decade later, they will pick up where they left off with Ramirez’s cruiserweight belts on the line.
“He’s ‘The Monster.’ He’s different,” Ramirez said of Benavidez. “He used to beat up a lot of sparring partners. Now we’re here, we’re two warriors and we’re making history.”
Only this time they will meet on what has become a holiday on the boxing schedule, in front of an audience at Las Vegas’ premier fight venue and on a PBC pay-per-view stream.
“For the whole history of Cinco de Mayo fights, it’s been tremendous fighters like Oscar [De La Hoya] and [Julio Cesar] Chavez,” Benavidez said. “Not just great fights, but wars. Because they never took easy fights. That’s what we’re doing. We’re two Mexican warriors going for the title.”
Strip away all the extras, though, and this fight should be a gift to purists. Never mind dates or broadcasters, fighter origins or manufactured beefs. If all goes to plan, Benavidez-Ramirez is a clash that can be held up as boxing’s modern standard.
“Neither team is too big into talking, and there won’t be a need for it,” said Julian Chua, Ramirez’s trainer. “I’ve seen them sparring up close, and those rounds were all pay-per-view worthy. Now you layer on that it’s a real fight, the competitive nature that brought them both to where they are today, at its peak form, it will be there.
“This is gonna be a shootout and a great war. I don’t feel any pressure, because the way these guys are, it’s gonna be a great fight.”
Jason Langendorf is the former Boxing Editor of ESPN.com, was a contributor to Ringside Seat and the Queensberry Rules, and has written about boxing for Vice, The Guardian, Sun-Times and other publications. A member of the Boxing Writers Association of America, he can be found at LinkedIn and followed on X and Bluesky.
