Benavidez seeks personal redemption against Dirrell

Often times in life, and obviously in sports, someone gets a chance at redemption. And that’s what former WBC Super Middleweight Champion, David Benavidez, is seeking as he tries to regain his crown coming up.

Benavidez get set to take on the current WBC champ, Anthony Dirrell, in the co-main event of the PBC Pay-per-view on Fox Saturday night September 28th in Los Angeles.

And on Tuesday, Benavidez was reflective on how he cost himself his title by testing positive for cocaine a little over a year ago. Benavidez (21-0, 18 KOs) was slated to defend his title for the second time and fight Darrell last September, but was popped by a voluntary anti-doping agency (VADA) pre-fight drug test in late August.

He was subsequently stripped and suspended by the WBC for four months. Then, Dirrell  (31-1-1) ended up capturing the vacant WBC belt in February, when he won a technical decision over Avni Yildirim.

On the Premier Boxing Champions pre-fight media conference call, Benavidez took full responsibility putting himself in the position he did and talked about what he’s learned,

“I’m more mature. I feel like the situation did more good to me than bad. It’s made me realize that everything can be lost. It definitely took that to mature me and see that I had my whole life’s work taken away over one error. I’m more dedicated now, but I’m going to value things way more too. This is just a fight I want to look spectacular in.”

Benavidez elaborated on what the last year’s been like and how grateful he is to get the opportunity later this month,

“When we got suspended for a year we didn’t know what to do with our time. Obviously we trained but it’s like when you’re training and you don’t have anything coming up, you just train, you go home and talk about the mistakes that lead you to that point. And I felt like I matured a lot from that point, just talking to my father and my father being around me, supporting me and my family supporting me through this whole situation.

I feel like I’m very grateful just to have my family there with me always supporting me,” Benavidez continued. “At the end of the day, this is what I do it for. I don’t just do it for me. I do it for my family. Obviously I do it for my legacy when I get older too but I put my family before myself every time. So everything that’s good for me is good for them. I’m just very appreciative that they’re there supporting me no matter what.”

Benavidez, who is trained by his father Jose, Sr., and has welterweight contender younger brother Jose, Jr., knows that family support will be big in trying to get his belt back.