by Keith Idec

Consistently hearing and reading that he was avoiding David Morrell Jr. motivated David Benavidez to make their much-discussed fight a reality.

The unbeaten Benavidez was accustomed to boxing fans praising him throughout his fruitless pursuit of a career-defining showdown with Canelo Alvarez. It didn’t sit well with Benavidez that he was the accused ducker during his developing rivalry with Morrell, who will battle Benavidez in a 12-round light heavyweight fight February 1 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

Benavidez demonstrated during the press conference to officially announce their pay-per-view main event Tuesday in Los Angeles just how irritated he is by trash talk from Morrell.

“Here we are again,” Benavidez stated from the podium inside The Novo at L.A. Live. “I told you guys I was gonna give you the best fights that you guys wanted to see, and we’re here again. We got this guy – he’s been talking about me for a while, for about two or three years. Disrespecting me, disrespecting my dad [Jose Sr.], disrespecting my brother [Jose]. So now, he wanted to take it personal with me. So, I’m personally gonna break his f*cking mouth, so he has something to remember me by.”

The Cuban-born, Minneapolis-based Morrell blasted Benavidez for saying he would “break” his “mouth.” Morrell deemed Benavidez “stupid,” among other things, when it was his turn to promote their PBC Pay-Per-View show on Prime Video.

Morrell might have far less professional experience than Benavidez, but he has displayed an abundance of technical skill and power while winning secondary WBA belts in the super middleweight and light heavyweight divisions.

“It’s simple – everybody say that he is the boogeyman,” Morrell said. “I wanna fight the best in the division. The best in the division is him.”

Morrell (11-0, 9 KOs) and Benavidez (29-0, 24 KOs) both drew criticism after their most recent bouts, even though both boxers decisively won on points.

Benavidez nearly withdrew from his unanimous-decision victory over former WBC light heavyweight champ Oleksandr Gvozdyk (20-2, 16 KOs) on June 15 at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. The Phoenix native suffered torn ligaments in his right wrist, damage to the middle knuckle on his left hand and a cut over his right eye during training camp for his 12-round fight versus Gvozdyk.

Morrell, meanwhile, defeated Radivoje Kalajdzic by wide distances on all three scorecards August 3 in Los Angeles. He wasn’t his usual dominant self, either, on his way to winning 118-110, 117-111 and 117-111 on the Terence Crawford-Israil Madrimov undercard at BMO Stadium.

His points victory over Kalajdzic (29-3, 21 KOs) ended Morrell’s seven-fight knockout streak, yet he might represent the most challenging opponent of Benavidez’s 11-year pro career.

“These are the type of fighters I wanna fight,” Benavidez said. “I wanna fight the people that they have confidence in themselves, that they think they’re gonna go in there and knock me out, that they say that I haven’t fought somebody like him. At the end of the day, he’s never fought nobody like me. And I’mma prove to everybody that there’s levels to this. And I’m not playing when I say I’mma break his mouth, because that’s exactly what I’mma do.”

Benavidez, 27, and Morrell, 26, will fight for Benavidez’s WBC interim 175-pound championship and Morrell’s WBA world light heavyweight title. Russia’s Artur Beterbiev (21-0, 20 KOs) owns the legitimate IBF, WBA, WBC and WBO titles in their division and became boxing’s first undisputed light heavyweight champion of the four-belt era when he defeated previously unbeaten Russian Dmitry Bivol (23-1, 12 KOs) by unanimous decision October 12 at Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.