Kalvan Henderson is another victim of David Morrell’s knockout who is suspected of having something wrong with their fight. He went out of his way to complain about his doubts about him and he suspects something was fishy with the lack of drug tests for their 2022 fight.
Henderson (19-2-1, 13 KOs) was knocked out in the fourth round by Morrell (11-0, 9 KOs) on June 4, 2022 at the Armory in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He said there was no drug testing for the fight and he sensed something fishy was going on. Although he has no evidence and is speculating, he thinks something is going on.
Morrell looked skinny in the fight and not like someone on PEDs, but Henderson remains suspicious. Another of Morrell’s knockout victims, Sena Agbeko, recently spoke about her suspicions about him due to his lack of drug testing. Even though he doesn’t have proof either, he still talks.
Henderson thinks interim WBC light heavyweight champion David Benavidez (29-0, 24 KOs) will defeat WBA ‘regular’ champion Morrell in their February 1 fight because he says he is bigger than him and has better stamina. They are the same size, but good.
“Superman” Morrell? Henderson has his doubts
“I went to Morrell’s second home in Minnesota. No one else wanted to fight him. I had a great game plan. I felt the fight was stopped early. He was a guy [Morrell] win the fight? Yes, but we had a game plan for the deeper rounds,” Kalvin Henderson told the Fighthypestill bitter about his fourth-round TKO loss to David Morrell two years ago on June 4, 2022.
“I catch him with body shots and hear what those shots do to him. I knew it would slow down eventually. That fight was supposed to be drug tested and we both signed papers to be drug tested. We get to the fight in the locker room, and the WBA forgets to order doping tests.
“So that’s another thing. We are not only fighting politics. We’re fighting a potentially dirty fighter in Morrell… There was still no drug test after the fight. There is something suspicious. Superman only exists in the comics,” Henderson said when asked if there was anything fishy about David Morrell.
There was nothing “Superman” about Morrell’s fourth-round knockout of Calvin Henderson. He leaned him against the ropes and pinned him down with a few hard blows; the referee saw that Henderson was taking some vicious shots and stopped them.
He would have been hurt if he had allowed Morrell to continue hitting Henderson. There was too much time left in the round for the referee to allow the fight to continue.
“These guys have a lot of money behind them, a lot of money in things that are out of their control. So of course they’re going to be put in the best possible position,” Henderson said. “This guy [Morrell] was bigger than me in the ring on fight night. Fighters know. Before the weigh-in, he drank Gatorade before stepping on the scale. Something is suspicious.”
It’s a big reach on Henderson’s part to conclude from Morrell drinking Gatorade at the weigh-in that he used PEDs. That’s a wild guess on his part. He drinks Gatorade; therefore, he is dirty. It doesn’t make sense, but if you’re trying to figure out why Morrell beat you, you need to find something instead of accepting that you weren’t good enough.
Benavidez to beat Morrell?
“I think Benavidez will beat Morrell on sheer size and stamina. Benavidez lands hard punches for 15 rounds in a row. So I think his pressure is relentless and non-stop [punches] will make the difference in this fight. I don’t think Benavidez’s power will carry over to 175,” Henderson said.
Calvin is a little confused. Benavidez is no bigger than Morrell, and his stamina at 175 is no better than his at 168. We saw that in Benavidez’s last fight at 175 when he ran out of gas after six rounds against Oleksandr Gvozdyk. Morrell has four inches more reach than Benavidez, punches harder and has better hand speed and technical ability. You wouldn’t expect Henderson to know the details between Morrell and Benavidez because he’s a fighter and doesn’t analyze fights like the writers do.
“At 168 years old, he was huge. Some people called him a ‘thug with weight’, but at 175 years old, it’s more of a natural weight for him. So I think you’re going to see longer fights for Benavidez and Morrell, maybe also, in that weight class because of the bigger guys,” Henderson said.
Things will be much different for Benavidez at 175 compared to his weight-bullying days at 168, where he routinely enjoyed a massive size advantage over his mix of old, frail and severely flawed opponents that his promoters put him up against 28 year. of his first 29 career fights.
You can’t blame ‘Mexican Monster’ Benavidez for choosing to stay at 168 for so long as it allowed him to build a career that wouldn’t have existed if he’d been fighting where he should have been at 175 since turning pro in 2013.
If Benavidez fought in the light heavyweight division, he probably would have been beaten many times by now. He would be just one of the others, along with other candidates such as Joshua Buatsi, Willy Hutchinson and Oleksandr Gvozdyk.
