Demetrius “Boo Boo” Andrade was crushed over the weekend by a prime, steamrolling-everyone David Benavidez. He caved after taking Benavidez’s first big shot, seconds after “The Mexican Monster” made his first adjustment to Andrade’s off-putting style late in the fourth round. He never recovered from the first knockdown. He was never allowed to recover. Six minutes after the pain started, his corner was moved to wave off the fight between rounds six and seven.
The total destruction of “Boo Boo” was more about David Benavidez than Demetrius Andrade. But, as we all know, the online Universo Pugilistico doesn’t lean into the positive.
Within seconds/minutes of the official result, fans and media were online calling Andrade everything from a fake to a fraud to a product of our shitty modern boxing times. The factoids were hauled out to prove their points. They hit Boxrec and pointed out that, until this fight, Andrade had never faced a reigning, past, or future full world champion– in fifteen years as an undefeated pro. They pointed out the very “email-y/paper champ” nature of his three world titles and the total lack of depth to his resume in general.
They have a point (or several points), but none of that means Andrade isn’t/wasn’t a legit talent with high-end ability.
The Providence, Rhode Island native wasn’t some bumbling faker cashing out in his first “real” fight after hustling an entire industry. If you know what you’re watching, you know that Andrade was, indeed, “for real” and that even the slightly past-prime version of himself that walked through the ropes last Saturday night, would give almost everyone in the top 10 a rough time.
The reality when it comes to Andrade, though, is that he made some bad decisions over the course of his career that always made him an extremely easy opponent to avoid. And those decisions brought him to the point of having to face a buzzsaw like Benavidez for his first main event pay-per-view payout.
As I wrote elsewhere:
“Boxing is a business and all managers/promoters/advisors assess risk vs. reward when selecting opposition. In Andrade’s case, he has almost always been on the wrong side of that risk-reward assessment. It happens. It sometimes happens with slick fighters, awkward fighters, one-punch KO artists, but it always happens, to varying degrees, to fighters with poor representation and an inability to parlay connections into opportunities.
Andrade has been a victim of his own bad business decisions for years and years. For instance, his decision to sign with Matchroom/DAZN may have bagged him a shit-ton of money for limited work, but being tucked away on subscription TV did nothing to raise his profile and put him in a position to get big-money legacy fights. As a matter of fact, his run at the streaming service probably lowered his profile even further.”
If the plan was to play the GGG game and justify fighting tailor made fall guys because the one guy he really wanted wouldn’t pay attention to him, he was clearly delusional. For a number of reasons, he was never going to receive the type of fawning deference and red carpet treatment Golovkin got.
Although it could be argued that making good money for low-level risk is a “real world” win, it certainly didn’t help Andrade, the boxer.
Lots of fighters are avoided for lots of reasons. At some point, though, a fighter has to make the decision to carve out his own path to stardom, force the big guys to answer his call, and/or make it worthwhile to take him on. Andrade could’ve been more active. He could’ve moved up in weight sooner. He could’ve taken on more stylistically tough match-ups in pursuit of legacy-defining, market-creating wins. At the very least, he could’ve been more entertaining against the second and third-tier guys he was facing.
It also needs to be pointed out that he played that same risk vs. reward game at times. For example, he passed on a Jermall Charlo fight several years back when he was considered the higher-profile star and Charlo was on the losing end of the risk-reward assessment. He also reportedly passed on a bout with Janibek Alimkhanuly. So, there was always a bit of hypocrisy in Andrade’s laments about being ducked.
Whatever the case, when it comes to the career of Demetrius Andrade, it very much is what it is (or was what it was). The Benavidez thrashing isn’t necessarily the closing chapter of his career, although it MAY be, given the way he’s conducted his boxing business for the fifteen years prior.
Andrade’s still got the talent and the skill to be a high-end pro. He was never a fake or a fraud. All the past business of his career was irrelevant the moment he stepped into the ring at Michelob Ultra Arena.
He just had the misfortune of running into a 26-year-old prime David Benavidez who, unlike a prime Andrade back in the day, is very much not fucking around or treading water when it comes to his career.
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