It was refreshing. For once, a star admitted he screwed up.

David Benavidez didn’t run and hide. He made no excuses. He assumed all culpability, when he came in at 170.8 pounds on Friday, close to three pounds over the 168-pound limit for his WBC super middleweight title defense against Roamer Alexis Angulo.

The fight went on as planned—only Benavidez had to relinquish the WBC super middleweight title for the second time outside the ring.

Then, Benavidez went on as planned on PBC’s Showtime Championship Boxing telecast from the Mohegan Sun Arena fight sphere in Uncasville, Connecticut, on Saturday night.

The 23-year-old star chewed up and spit out Angulo, stopping the 36-year-old Colombian for the first time in his career, when he couldn’t answer the bell for the 11th round.

Benavidez (23-0, 20 knockouts) displayed his vast array of punches, plowing through Angulo with rights to the head and the body, lead rights, right uppercuts and combinations that Angulo (26-2, 22 KOs) had no way to defend.

But Benavidez knew the topic everyone in boxing was talking about.

And he didn’t shy away from answering.

“I messed up,” Benavidez said. “Whatever they want to say is true. Hopefully, I’ll get another chance fighting for the WBC title again. It was a mistake on my part. A lot of people can say what they want. I’m in the gym every day. Just because this was my first time missing weight in eight years as a professional, it’s not like I missed weight hundreds of times.

“I’m extremely dedicated. I work as hard as anybody else. It’s the first time I missed weight. I got fined a lot of money. I lost the title. My job was to still win the fight. I still had a good fighter in front of me. I’ll have another opportunity at a belt sometime in the future.

“My main objective was to win the fight.”

He did.

Easily.

Each round was a carbon copy of the next.

By the 10th, the former two-time titlist was well in command. In the last minute of the 10th, Benavidez punished Angulo against the ropes and it forced Angulo’s corner to end it.

Benavidez did not rule out staying at 168.

“I want to get all these fights before I go up,” he said. “I have to be even more dedicated than I already was. I felt like with training, as long as I didn’t miss any training session, running sessions, strength and conditioning, that I would be good. But the diet has to be way stricter. It was already good but something got messed up and, I don’t know, I couldn’t get those last pounds off.

“You know, if they thought I had a discipline problem, it would have shown in the ring. Did I look tired, fatigued? Just because I missed weight one time doesn’t mean I’m not disciplined. But they’re entitled to say whatever they want because it’s true. I didn’t make weight. It’s up to me to go back to the drawing board and come back better next time.”

Joseph Santoliquito is an award-winning sportswriter who has been working for Ring Magazine/RingTV.com since October 1997 and is the president of the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be followed on twitter @JSantoliquito.

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