Who is Jose Benavidez Jr? The Man From Creed Can Strike

Who is Jose Benavidez Jr? You may know him as Felix Chavez from Creed III or by following his 28 wins as a professional boxer. Regardless, Benavidez Jr only has two losses on his record and managed to take the legendary Terence Crawford all the way to the 12th round before losing via TKO back in 2018.

The 31-year-old hasn’t been incredibly active within the five years since that loss, picking up only one more win to add to his record. Ahead of his bout with Jermall Charlo this Saturday, we take a look at the Jose Benavidez Jr bio and if he can upset the odds against the unbeaten WBC middleweight champion.

Who is Jose Benavidez Jr?

After turning professional all the way back in early 2010 aged just 18, Benavidez would rack up six wins inside the first five months of his career, winning all of those bouts via TKO. In fact, he cleared out Steven Cox and John Michael Vega within the first round of his first two fights before Benavidez went on to beat the likes of Arnoldo Pacheco, Ronnie Peterson and Josh Beeman all in the first round too.

Winston Mathis would be the first man to take him past round two in what was the American’s ninth professional bout, but even he couldn’t get out of the third. This was also Benavidez’s first pay-per-view outing, as he sat on the main card of the Manny Pacquiao vs Antonio Margartio event.

A unanimous decision win over Fernando Rodríguez would follow in January, 2011, putting Benavidez on a 10-fight winning run within the first year of his professional career. The American would continue to rack up lesser known names on his record until he TKO’d Henry Auraad in 2014 and then Mauricio Herrera for the WBA interim light welterweight title a few months later.

Benavidez would eventually move to a 27-0 record with 18 wins via KO/TKO before meeting with the unbeaten Crawford. He lost that thrilling fight in the final round back in 2018, taking a few rounds off arguably the current pound for pound king.

The American also met his maker when he matched up with Francisco Emanuel Torres and fought out a majority draw, while he also lost to Danny Garcia in July of last year. This now means the man from Panorama City has only defeated Sladan Janjanin since beating Frank Rojas back in 2018.

Jose Benavidez Bio

Prior to his impressive professional career where he now has 19 knockouts, Benavidez was an 11-time national champion, which includes the Silver Gloves twice and a spot on the U.S National Team.  Quite incredibly, the 28-2 professional boxer is also the youngest-ever Golden Gloves winner at only 16 years old.

Benavidez is also the older brother of the rising unbeaten star, David Benavidez, who headlines the card this Saturday, November 25th against Demetrius Andrade. His brother is the reigning WBC interim super middleweight and even has a win over Caleb Plant already in 2023.