\n<\/p>\n
British light-heavyweight Anthony Yarde’s third shot at a world title ended in heartbreak again after a systematic beat-down by WBC champion David Benavidez in Saudi Arabia.<\/b><\/p>\n
After a slow start, American Benavidez seized control, sending 34-year-old Yarde to the canvas with a barrage in the seventh. <\/p>\n
With blood streaming from Yarde’s nose and smeared across the canvas, another heavy flurry of punches with a minute left in the round forced the referee to halt the contest.<\/p>\n
“I stuck in there. I’m a fighter,” Yarde told BBC Radio 5 Live. <\/p>\n
“I felt like it was competitive. I know how he comes with good pressure. I was boxing, boxing, thinking middle rounds, the dog rounds, we would exchange.<\/p>\n
“He has quick hands, caught me first and hit me with a good shot on the nose. When I took a knee and he hit me when I was down, I was dizzy after that.”<\/p>\n
Benavidez was deducted two points for punches while Yarde was down, but the outcome was already inevitable.<\/p>\n
The Londoner – having previously lost in world championship bouts to Sergey Kovalev in 2019 and Artur Beterbiev in 2022 – may now have to accept the possibility that a world title might elude him.<\/p>\n
Benavidez, 28, remains unbeaten and extends his record to a formidable 25 knockouts in 31 wins.<\/p>\n
After the fight, Benavidez – of Mexican heritage – revealed he plans to move up to cruiserweight to challenge Mexico’s Gilberto Ramirez for the WBA and WBO cruiserweight titles on 2 May, aiming to become a three-weight world champion.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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British light-heavyweight Anthony Yarde’s third shot at a world title ended in heartbreak again after a systematic beat-down by WBC champion David Benavidez in Saudi Arabia. After a slow start, American Benavidez seized control, sending 34-year-old Yarde to the canvas with a barrage in the seventh. With blood streaming from Yarde’s nose and smeared across<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1862,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-boxing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1861\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}