Dan Rafael believes WBC interim super middleweight champion David Benavidez has the edge in his fight against WBA 'regular' champion David Morrell on February 1st.

Journalist Rafael thinks Benavidez (29-0, 24 KOs) has better chin and punching power than Cuban Morel (11-0, 9 KOs) in this match-up, which will be shown live on PBC on Prime Video PPV. from T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

Benavidez's weakness

Benvidez landed a body blow from former WBC light heavyweight champion Govozdyk in the 12th round. It was an area he appeared to be weak in during the fight when the Ukrainian stabbed him with jabs and right hands to the body.

Benavidez doesn't take as many body shots as his head, which is understandable since he's soft with very little muscle in his flabby midsection.

His ability to take headshots may be a product of having a large Andre 'The Giant' type head on a thin, pear-shaped torso, which allows him to take shots that would normally hit a normal fighter. Whereas Benavidez is in a weak body. If Morel attacks him there, he can score a stoppage with a body shot.

The experience factor

“I'll lean on Benavidez. I wouldn't say because of pedigree because David Morrell has a deep amateur background in the Cuban system,” Dan Rafael said. Boxing is social About the February 1st fight of David Benavidez vs. David Morrell.

“They are both in their prime athletically for their age, although David Morrell has had very few fights because he started late. He left Cuba and he left very early in his career. But he didn't need 1000 fights because he had all that amateur experience, whereas Benavidez turned pro at 17. He had done more than enough to bring him to this point.

“When you look at the records, and you see a guy has less than 15 fights and a guy has 30 fights, you think that guy is a lot older and has a lot more experience. This is not the case. They are both very close in age and experience, Morel's amateurs make up for it, while Benavidez has more professional experience.”

Morel has more experience in the sport than Benavidez, who has done 148 rounds as a professional in his 12-year career.

Morel has 54 rounds, but was 130-2 as an amateur in Cuba and has more overall rounds against better opposition than Benavidez has fought as a pro. Benavidez has fought limited fighters, mostly older guys like Gvozdyk, Demetrius Andrade, 36, David Lemieux and Caleb Plant.

Chin and Power

“I'm leaning towards Benavidez because his combination of chin and power might be a little better than Morel,” Rafael said.

Morel, 26, is a fighter less than a year old and has never been hurt before. It's hard to say for sure if Benavidez's chin is fine when Morrell has never been hurt. In terms of power, Morel is by far the best puncher. Raphael is off with that.

Benavidez is a volume puncher who throws a lot of slap arm shots. All 24 of The Mexican Monster's knockouts came when he was fighting under his natural weight class of 168, and had a huge size advantage over his opponents.

When he moved up to 175 in his last fight as a professional 11 years later, his power wasn't the same and he wasn't the threat to knock out his opponent Oleksandr Govozdyk on June 15th of last year.

“I don't have any evidence of that because it's not like Morrell was tripped or tripped or badly injured. I just get the feeling that in a firefight, the guy who's going to be able to do a little better is going to be Benavidez. But we will see. That's why it's a 50-50-ish kind of fight,” said Rafael.