David Benavidez Stops A Game Ronald Ellis
Former WBC Super Middleweight Champion David Benavidez was looking to get back his title and made inroads to just that as he stopped Ronald Ellis to close out the Showtime broadcast from the “Fightsphere” of Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut.
The official stoppage was 2:03 in the eleventh round as Benavidez remained undefeated (24-0,21 KOs) while Ellis dropped to 18-2-2 (12 KOs).
The first round of this contest had Ellis coming out the aggressor but that tapered off as Benavidez was able to put a few shots together. The fight plan was slowly turning into a firefight in the second and more of that continued in the third. Both guys were willing to trade toe to toe and both were throwing. You can hear as blow-by-blow man Mauro Ranallo called the “symphony of leather” early in this one.
As the fight grew on, you can see that the hand speed and countering of Benavidez was just going to be too much for Ellis but he kept pressing on and was game for this one. The one thing for Ellis that kept him in the fight was his movement and ability but in the sixth round that seemed to get him a lot of power punches for his efforts by Benavidez. Despite the punches, Ellis was still along for the ride.
.@Benavidez300 went to work in round 6 ?? #BenavidezEllis pic.twitter.com/S94bfexeBl
— SHOWTIME Boxing (@ShowtimeBoxing) March 14, 2021
The doc checked on Ellis as he let him know he was taking a lot of shots before the start of the ninth round and that was a cause of concern as Benavidez at this point was in control. Ellis’s corner after the ninth warned him about the headshots he was absorbing from Benavidez. The sign of this one ending was in the eleventh round as Benavidez kept the onslaught coming at Ellis forcing the referee stop the fight from the accumulation of punches. Good stoppage by Johnny Callas.
This contest was a WBC title eliminator with the winner getting a future title shot at the current titleholder as of this writing in Canelo Alvarez. That fight will be a while down the road as he faced the Avni Yildirim in February to satisfy that condition for a while. In the meantime, Benavidez is one step closer to getting the title he once had twice before.
Marquis Johns is a unknown humorist and avid boxing fan. His love for the sweet science goes back to when matches were 15 rounds and has been covering fights since closed-circuit pay-per-views. Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth is not only a quote by Mike Tyson, it's also a pretty good reminder to keep your guard up.
