Benavidez says he hurt Bivol in sparring: ‘I touched him’

David Benavidez reminded the media today of how Dmitry Bivol hurt himself during his last sparring session. He says he sparred with the light heavyweight champion “a lot” and injured him.

Benavidez reminds Bivol of the pain of sparring

Benavidez (30-0, 24 KOs) has stated that he sees no difference between sparring and fighting. He says if he can knock someone out in sparring, he can do it in fighting. Bivol (24-1, 12 KO) is the one Benavidez is targeting with all three belts to become the undisputed light heavyweight champion.

“It’s the same thing. If you can touch someone in boxing, you can touch someone in fighting,” David Benavidez said. Ring heroesdiscusses the success he has had sparring with Dmitry Bivol. “I fought with him a lot. I hurt him the last time we sparred. I was 22 years old.

“I hurt him”: Revisiting the 2019 hearings

The sparring took place around 2019, when Benavidez was taking down Anthony Dirrell and Jaleon Love, and he looked unstoppable. Considering the way he was already fighting at the time, it was understandable why Bivol had problems with him. He doesn’t handle pressure well, as we saw in his fights with Artur Beterbiev. It must have been a nightmare for him to deal with Benavidez attacking him non-stop during sparring sessions.

“He had a lot more experience than me, but I did it with the experience I had. Now, I’m smarter and I’ve become a better all-around fighter,” Benavidez said.

That sparring session may be one of the reasons Bivol was hesitant to fight Benavidez. I mean, he vacated his WBC title when “The Mexican Monster” Benavidez became mandatory. The official reason was that he had the trilogy match with Artur Beterbiev that he was going to have.

Fear of the Mexican monster?

This fight never happened, so it’s reasonable to conclude that Bivol wasn’t interested in fighting Benavidez and dealing with the combination punches he’s known for.

Benavidez is still hopeful that a fight with Bivol will happen at some point, but it is questionable whether or not that will happen. Bivol isn’t getting any younger. He turns 35 on December 18, 2025, and will undergo back surgery.

Dan Ambrose has been writing about boxing since 2011, cutting through the hype with unvarnished truth in the ring.