Immediately following his unanimous decision win over Caleb Plant, David Benavidez appeared at the post-fight press conference to discuss his thoughts on the fight and why he believes he deserves to move on to a bigger opportunity. Benavidez also says now that his fight with Plant is over, so is their beef, and now it’s Canelo Alvarez he wants to focus on.
Benavidez on what allowed him to be victorious over Plant
“The main thing is I wanted to be patient. I mean, Caleb Plant is a great counter puncher, as you can see he’s really fast. I didn’t want to go in there and just get countered with any shots. I really had to take my time. I think you guys seen a good jab, my jab was may more effective than Caleb Plant’s. You guys were talking about Caleb Plant having the more effective jab and stuff like that.
“But as soon as I got in there — the fight is not a four or six round fight, it’s a 12 round fight so you got to start slow. But as soon as I found my groove there was nothing you could do to stop me. I hurt him to the body, hurt him to the head, cut the ring off pretty good. And like I said, I’m just satisfied with this. There’s a lot of things I can fix in my game but overall I’m satisfied with this. This is my first fight PPV, this is the biggest fight I’ve ever been in, the biggest fight in my life, and I felt like I did amazing.
“We went out there, I told you I was gonna put a beating on Caleb Plant. That’s exactly what I did.”
On squashing his beef with Plant after the fight
“I just told him man-to-man, ‘sorry for all the trash talk.’ We went at each other, we talked a lot of shit to each other, and a lot of it — I’m not gonna say it wasn’t necessary because it was necessary because this fight was huge, it was a huge fight, and sometimes that’s what you need to bring out the best in the two men.
“And we’re both warriors. He’s a warrior, he definitely showed it, but I showed I’m the better warrior and I wanted the opportunity to be challenged by a top super middleweight. He’s definitely top three, I’m top two, the number one is Canelo. So we both had a lot to fight for. The winner is supposedly gonna get Canelo so I pute everything into this training camp.
“At the end of the day I don’t want to hold no grudges against nobody. I’ll only do that if we’re building a fight or something, but after that there’s no need. I’m not the type of guy, I’ve never been that type of guy, so I have nothing but respect for Caleb Plant and I’m happy he gets to go home to his family safe.”
On not being able to force the stoppage like he promised
“I’m a little disappointed I didn’t get the stoppage but you guys seen how his face looked. He was really bloody and I was really imposing my will. I beat him up really good and I’m not really satisfied because I didn’t get the knockout but this is a great way to get a victory — just a dominating performance.
“There’s a lot of things I can tweak in my game to make sure I get the stoppage next time. But also I feel like, I don’t want to throw Kenny Bayless under the bus but he didn’t call Caleb Plant out in any of the clinches he was doing the whole fight. I think if Kenny Bayless would’ve said something about the clinches, maybe would’ve stopped Caleb from trying to clinch and I would’ve clipped him.
“But I was hurting him a lot of times, busted his eye open, hurt him to the body, and I can still get better. I am satisfied with this performance, I’m not gonna say I’m not. I’m very satisfied.”
On wanting the Canelo fight
“I feel like Canelo Alvarez, he needs these fights, a big fighter like me. This is a really big fight, as you can see me and Caleb Plant was a huge fight, so I think it would do huge PPV numbers.
“Let’s just take it back to fighting, man. I want to prove myself. Canelo’s proved himself but I feel like he needs to give me the opportunity too. And it’s not like I’m begging for something, I’ve been mandatory for the past two fights. So it’s something I’ve earned, especially after this fight.