{"id":234491,"date":"2025-07-03T10:44:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-03T10:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/234491\/"},"modified":"2025-07-03T10:44:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-03T10:44:09","slug":"benavidez-set-for-riyadh-season-debut-vs-yarde-in-november","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/234491\/","title":{"rendered":"Benavidez set for Riyadh Season debut vs. Yarde in November"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anthony Yarde<\/a> will have a third crack at world title honours as David Benavidez<\/a> makes the first defence of his WBC light-heavyweight world title in his Riyadh Season debut come November.
His Excellency Turki Alalshikh has today announced on X<\/a> that after months of speculation over Benavidez’s next move, he will face two-time title challenger Yarde in the former’s long-awaited Riyadh Season debut. The date and venue will be confirmed in due course.
Yarde (27-3, 24 KOs) recovered from a sluggish start to outpoint Lyndon Arthur<\/a> and settle their trilogy on the Chris Eubank Jr-Conor Benn undercard at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on April 26. Benavidez emerged unscathed from a thrilling firefight<\/a> between unbeaten contenders with David Morrell two months earlier, in his second bout at the 175-pound limit.<\/p>\n

This latest development comes after negotiations with WBO interim light-heavyweight champion Callum Smith<\/a> (31-2, 22 KOs) had been ongoing as far back as April, with the Liverpudlian’s promoter Eddie Hearn confirming he’d been in touch<\/a> with Benavidez’s management team about potentially scheduling that fight in the final quarter of 2025. <\/p>\n

Smith has been in Istanbul, Turkey this week for the IBA’s latest Pro event and spoke publicly as late as Wednesday night about renewed optimism they could get a deal done – provided the financials were right, and all parties were in agreement on a suitable fight date. <\/p>\n

Yarde suffered a career-first defeat in August 2019, falling short but earning credit aplenty after Sergey Kovalev scored an 11th-round stoppage win to retain the WBO world title. <\/p>\n

Three-and-a-half years later, he gave then-unbeaten champion Artur Beterbiev all he could handle during an absorbing contest but again fell short, losing via 8th-round stoppage. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In two-and-a-half years since then, he has only boxed four times and largely against low-level opposition before ending an unexpected Arthur series victorious. The 33-year-old is The Ring’s No. 4-ranked contender, while Benavidez sits at No. 2 after impressive decision victories over Oleksandr Gvodzyk and Morrell to kickstart his light-heavyweight campaign.<\/p>\n

He was ringside in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to watch Dmitry Bivol outpoint Beterbiev on February 22<\/a> with tentative plans to face the victor next. Instead, with the pair deadlocked at one apiece after two fights, a trilogy is mooted to finish their own much-anticipated rivalry.
Bivol relinquished the WBC strap<\/a> and Benavidez subsequently elevated from interim titleholder in the aftermath, once it became clear that matchup wouldn’t be next. Yesterday, the IBF ordered Bivol to make a long overdue defence<\/a> against Michael Eiffert (13-1, 5 KOs) and it remains to be seen whether he will drop another belt, though the division moves on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anthony Yarde will have a third crack at world title honours as David Benavidez makes the first defence…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":234492,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4108],"tags":[15227,1935,19520,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-234491","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-anthony-yarde","9":"tag-boxing","10":"tag-david-benavidez","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114788896807055139","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}