A handful of fights is all David Morrell needed before he started tangling with the big boys. On February 1st, at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, Morrell and David Benavidez, both ranked No. 3 and 8 in the light heavyweight division by The Ring, will get it on. (photo by Ryan Hfey)

For the first time in his career, Morrell (11-0, 9 KOs) will stroll through the arena as an underdog. Benavidez (29-0, 24 KOs) may have the accolades, a multi-division champion at 168-pounds and the current WBC 175-pound interim belt holder, but Morrell doesn’t understand the hype. Benavidez though, believes his resume speaks for itself.

David Lemieux, Caleb Plant, Demetrius Andrade, and Oleksandr Gvozdyk - all share similarities. All of their respective mantles contain some championship hardware. They also know what it’s like to have a pound of flesh taken from them by Benavidez.

Those wins he managed to rack up haven’t exactly impressed Morrell though. The 40-punch combinations might look good to the naked eye but all Morrell sees are countless errors.

Sloppy footwork, lackadaisical offense, and porous defense stick out to the Cuban star. The mistakes have always been there but for Morrell, no one has been able to exploit them.

A few weeks remain before all of the trash talk gets replaced with punches to the jaw. Unfortunately for Benavidez, there isn’t enough time left on the clock to fix his flaws according to Morrell. All he can do now, is do his best to fight the perfect fight. But if he doesn’t, Morrell is confident that he’ll leave his man staring up at the T-Mobile Arena ceiling lights.

“He better not make a mistake,” explained Morrell to Sean Zittel during a recent interview over Zoom. “Because at this level, against the kind of opponent that I am, it’s gonna be a high price for him to pay.”