British welterweight prospect Conor Benn tells ESPN that he’s already prepared for the top fighters in the world coming off his destruction of Chris Algieri last month. Benn openly rates Terence Crawford, Errol Spence, Yordenis Ugas, Jaron Ennis, and Vergil Ortiz as his top-five fighters in the weight class, but has particular interest in Yordenis Ugas.
Obviously neither a fight against Ugas nor Spence can be done in the immediate future as they’re set to unify titles against one another, so for that matter Benn says he’s open to fight whomever his promoter can come up with, really.
“I will fight who ever they put in front of me next… Adrien Broner, Mikey Garcia, Danny Garcia, I like the sound of all of those fights, they are big names in America so it would be good for my PR in America. But the world title is the end goal and I would love the Ugas fight.”
As far as Benn’s promoter Eddie Hearn is concerned, he seems to understand the current welterweight landscape and that it could be difficult for Benn to get in a title fight this year, and therefore is exploring other potential options for Benn — with Adrien Broner being the name most often floated around as of late.
“(Broner) says he’s ready for Conor Benn, but wants to fight in March if possible. If not two names we like are Robert Guerrero and Maurice Hooker at The O2 [in London]. It will be one of those three names most likely.”
Now let’s just be honest here, there’s quite a gulf in skill and ability between the likes of Broner, Guerrero, and Hooker in compared to all the other names previously mentioned — particularly in the year 2022 — but those folks do carry some name recognition and Hearn is obviously a promoter who’s keen on building his fighter’s profile, not simply throw him right into the rough ocean waters hoping Benn won’t drown.
All of that is to simply say don’t expect Hearn to be beating down the door of either Ennis or Ortiz in the short term, which is fairly self-evident considering comments on the subject of Benn. So who would you most like to see Benn in the ring against next? Sound off in the comment section below.