David Morrell Jr. took one look at the first press conference for the David Benavidez-Demetrius Andrade fight and determined that Andrade wouldn’t provide Benavidez with much resistance.
Andrade’s approach to that promotional event was too friendly for Morrell’s taste. The Cuban southpaw already felt like Andrade was too far past his prime and not enough of a true super middleweight to legitimately test Benavidez.
The former junior middleweight and junior middleweight champ’s chummy demeanor gave Morrell even less faith that Andrade would pull off an upset November 25 in Las Vegas. A younger, stronger Benavidez dropped Andrade late in the fourth round, battered Andrade during the fifth and sixth rounds and won by technical knockout when Andrade’s handlers decided he shouldn’t continue after the sixth round at Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino’s Michelob ULTRA Arena.
“That fight was bullsh!t,” Morrell told BoxingScene.com. “Everybody knows that ‘Boo Boo’ [Andrade] was a good boxer before. Now, he’s a good boxer, too, but he’s like an old man. He’s 35 years old, he’s really not a 168-pounder. In his last fight [against Demond Nicholson], he didn’t look good.
“Why did he wanna fight ‘Boo Boo,’ when you have more guys at 168 that are stronger? He fought ‘Boo Boo’ because he knew ‘Boo Boo’ wasn’t ready for Benavidez in the last fight. He was not ready. The first round I was watching the fight, I knew he didn’t have everything to fight Benavidez.”
Morrell, 25, is one year younger than Benavidez, whereas Andrade is nine years older than the unbeaten WBC interim super middleweight champion. The emerging Morrell (9-0, 8 KOs) wants to battle Benavidez more than any other opponent, but he’ll settle Saturday night for facing Ghana’s Sena Agbeko (28-2, 22 KOs) in the 12-round main event of the last “Showtime Championship Boxing” broadcast of the premium cable network’s 37-year run in boxing.
If the ambitious Morrell ever gets his shot at Benavidez, he’ll handle the buildup toward their fight differently than he thinks Andrade dealt with it.
“The press conference they were like, ‘Hi. How are you?,’ ” Morrell said. “Like, come on, bro, do you wanna fight or do you wanna go to lunch? You know what I mean? It was crazy. The press conference, I watched it, and I was like, ‘This fight is bullsh!t.’ I watched [Benavidez’s] fight before ‘Boo Boo,’ with [Caleb] Plant, and it was different. The faceoff, everything, there was no smiles, no nothing. … After the press conference, I knew that fight was not good. It was good for Benavidez. He won. Congratulations to him.”
The Morrell-Agbeko bout will headline a four-fight telecast scheduled to start at 9 p.m. ET at The Armory in Minneapolis. Brooklyn’s Chris Colbert (17-1, 6 KOs) and Jose Valenzuela (12-2, 8 KOs), a Mexican southpaw who resides in Renton, Washington, will square off in the 10-round co-feature Saturday night, a lightweight rematch of a bout Colbert narrowly won by unanimous decision March 25 at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.
Mexico’s Julio Cesar Martinez (20-2, 15 KOs) will defend his WBC flyweight title against Angelino Cordova (18-0-1, 12 KOs), an optional challenger from Venezuela, in the 12-round, 112-pound championship match Showtime will air immediately before Colbert battles Valenzuela again.
The telecast will start with a 10-round welterweight rematch between 40-year-old former champions Robert Guerrero (37-6-1, 20 KOs, 2 NC), of Gilroy, California, and Andre Berto (32-5, 24 KOs), of Winter Haven, Florida. Guerrero dropped Berto once apiece in the first and second rounds of their first fight, a 12-rounder he won by unanimous decision in November 2012 at Citizens Business Bank Arena in Ontario, California.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.