Roy Jones Jr Says David Benavidez Could Beat Oleksandr Usyk in ‘50-50 Fight’ [Exclusive]

Roy Jones Jr believes that David Benavidez could beat Oleksandr Usyk and become a four-weight world champion, but he needs to do it sooner rather than later.

Benavidez only just became a three-weight world champion after handily dispatching Gilberto 'Zurdo' Ramirez for the WBO and WBA cruiserweight world titles in his first fight in the division. He has also previously claimed the WBC super middleweight and light heavyweight straps.

We also recently saw that the unified heavyweight champion and universally agreed best heavyweight, Oleksandr Usyk, almost suffer defeat to kickboxing legend Rico Verhoeven, only managing to find a controversial stoppage in the 11th round when many thought he was behind on the scorecards.

This has been put down to Verhoeven coming in as an unknown quantity with an incredibly unorthodox and relentlessly front-footed style that gave the champion serious problems. And that has given Jones Jr the confidence that Benavidez's style — high volume and up close — would be a perfect match for Usyk, giving him a better chance than anyone else.

David Benavidez (center) with his WBC title after his unanimous decision win over Oleksandr Gvozdyk. | IMAGO/ZUMA Press Wire

"The smartest thing for him to do is go try to fight Usyk, "Jones explained to KO On SI, courtesy of BettingLounge.

"Why? Because he has a style that can make it ugly for Usyk. If you make it ugly. If you fight him clean, he is going to beat you.

"Usyk is a very good fighter, but if Benavidez goes in and does what Benavidez can do, and he can take Usyk's punch, it's a 50-50 fight in my opinion."

Does Benavidez have more to achieve before a heavyweight move?

In his heyday, Jones Jr won middleweight, super middleweight, light heavyweight and heavyweight world titles, and his suggestion that Benavidez should be on the hunt for a world title in a fourth weight class may not be well met, as the argument has been made that the Mexican has not faced the best of any division he has campaigned in yet. A move to heavyweight could therefore be seen as premature.

He never managed to fight Canelo Alvarez at super middleweight, who has been the best super middleweight for almost a decade and is yet to fight either Dmitry Bivol or Artur Beterbiev - the last two undisputed light heavyweight champions. Finally, he is yet to face the Ring cruiserweight champion, Jai Opetaia.

Dmitry Bivol during a May 6, 2022 weigh in. | IMAGO / Hoganphotos

Jones, however, just sees these fights as an unnecessary risk to a big-money and history-making fight with Oleksandr Usyk.

"Jai Opetaia is a very dangerous fight for him. Why would you wait? You already won the cruiserweight title," Jones Jr questioned. "Beterbiev and Bivol are dangerous fights. You already won the Light Heavyweight title. Why? What are you fighting for?

“What I'm saying is, if David Benavidez went up and lost to Usyk, we still want to see him fight Bivol. . But if you lose to Bivol, we don't want to see him fight Usyk."

How does he fair against the rest of the heavyweight division?

Usyk might well be a good match-up for Bennavidez as one of the smallest heavyweight champions in the modern era, but he only needs to look to either side of the Ukrainian to see true full-blooded heavyweights like Moses Itauma, Anthony Joshua, Agit Kabayel and Daniel Dubois waiting for him.

Victory or even survival against heavy-hitters like these is an entirely different proposition for Benavidez and Jones Jr thinks that he would have his chin tested, but he could outwork these heavyweights.

"It's hard to say because I know he's been upwards to around about 230lbs, so I know he can hold his own weight at that weight class," Jones said. "I just haven't seen how well he takes a punch. And most of those guys that you just mentioned are a little bit bigger punchers than Usyk.

"He's going to outwork all of them. But can he take their punches? That's the question we got to ask."

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