David Benavidez and
Anthony Yarde are set to square off Nov. 22 to headline a Riyadh Season show in Saudi Arabia.
Benavidez, the WBC light heavyweight champion, is a minus-800 betting favorite, according to DraftKings, while Yarde is a plus-475 underdog.
Hall of Fame fighter-turned-pundit Timothy Bradley believes Yarde’s chances of beating Benavidez are slim and none — and slim has already left town.
"Yarde about to get his behind whooped, stomped on, and knocked out,” Bradley said on his YouTube channel. “I'm trying to warn everybody. How can I describe what's going to happen without offending anyone? But I don't give a damn. I'm from the old school.
"It's going to be a good fight, but it's going to be one of those fights where Yarde is going to get drained while fighting. He might have a few rounds where he has a little success, but he's going to get beat on. It's going to be like an insect getting trapped in a spider web.
"That's exactly how it's going to be. Benavidez is going to put knots on his head. Yarde is a decent boxer, but Benavidez is too long and the wrong style for him.”
Benavidez (30-0, 24 KOs) boasts a reputable hit list across his last five fights featuring wins against David Lemieux,
Caleb Plant,
Demetrius Andrade,
Oleksandr Gvozdyk and a Feb. 1 headline win
over then-unbeaten contender David Morrell.
Yarde (27-3, 24 KOs) has come up short during his biggest fights against
Artur Beterbiev (2023),
Lyndon Arthur ('20) and Sergey Kovalev ('19). Yarde did, however, avenge the Arthur defeats twice, in '21 and his most recent fight in April.
"For Benavidez, the talent is there, and he’s got a killer mindset,” Bradley said. “He’s got the volume and the hand speed. He’s a tough proposition to deal with. He’s got that toughness, too, that grit, that determination.
“Yarde, we’ve seen him in the past. We know what he does, flashy combinations. He tries to counterpunch every now and then, get hit with right hands and left hooks. Cute little boxer, but too many muscles. This isn’t a modeling contest. This is a fight.
"You’re going to see a glaring difference when it comes to the body. You're going to have one dude [Yarde] ripped up and ready to punch through a wall, and the other dude with a little flab on him, looking like a swimmer. He’s going to swim all up on Yarde."
Manouk Akopyan is The Ring’s lead writer. Follow him on X and Instagram: @ManoukAkopyan