The curious case of El Radar

Wilfred Benitez the great three weight world champion or is he, now this isn't about downplaying his ability which for a 6 year period was sublime but rather to question his often unquestioned greatness.

Turning pro at the age of just 15 Benitez within two years found himself in against the respected but limited Antonio Cervantez for the light welterweight title, the result a 15 year round split decision which meant he became the youngest world champion ever. He followed this up with two title defences before he moved up to Welterweight where he fought tricky opponents in Weston, Shields and Bruce Curry. He soon had a shot against the stylish mexican Carlos Palomino again winning by split decision and a title defence followed against the only man he had yet to beat Harold Weston. What came next was a match up of the highest quality against the sweetheart of american boxing Sugar Ray Leonard, after 14 and a half rounds of the most technically proficient boxing by both men he was stopped with 6 seconds left.

He once again moved up to produce one of the great knockouts over Maurice Hope to become a three weight world champion where defences against the great Roberto Duran and future champion Carlos Santos. He once again faced one of the fab four in Tommy Hearns taking him the distance in another technical fight. It is at this point his career takes a nose dive losing to middleweight contender Mustafa Hamsho and having to retire with a knee injury having been knocked down twice against the young Davey Moore. At the age of just 25 his career was effectively over at the highest level never again recapturing the form he had shown in becoming a triple world champion.

His ability is unquestionable and with his very cerebal style of boxing he often didn't get the credit he deserved from judges, his wins over Cervantez, Palomino and Duran were not at all close as the split and majority decisions would suggest. Just after the Hamsho fight he started to show signs of pugilistic dementia which would affect his later life so badly but regardless of this did he achieve enough to be considered a great no questions asked?

His top level wins consist of Cervantez, Palomino, Duran and Santos while he made just 6 successful defences of his titles, all things taken into account should we not question his standing but not his ability a little bit more?

Gread op. But unfortunately you set an unfair scene almost immediately by describing Cervantes as limited.

For me Benitez is a great. Unfortunate for him that his time coincided with greater fighters at his weight. Wins over Duran and Palomino cannot be downplayed. Great wins for a great fighter.

He still would have been finished by 25 though. Such was his physiology.

Cervantez was a fairly limited fighter in that he was always decisively beaten any time he faced a great fighter like Locche, Benitez or Pryor. No shame in losing to them but it was the manner he lost, he was beaten comfortably by all three in three completely different ways. Are wins over Duran and Palomino by themselves enough for greatness i'm not so sure.

Was going to pick up on Cervantes too. Benitez was the only guy to beat him in about 8 or 9 years.

Benitez playboy lifestyle and refusal to train makes both his achievements fairly remarkable and his decline inevitable. That decline was sudden though, beat Duran, give hearns a decent argument and then get outboxed by mustapha hamsho.

As az says, around in a great era, but did enough to be a great for me... He's a great 'what if?' Too.

Hammersmith harrier wrote:Cervantez was a fairly limited fighter in that he was always decisively beaten any time he faced a great fighter like Locche, Benitez or Pryor. No shame in losing to them but it was the manner he lost, he was beaten comfortably by all three in three completely different ways. Are wins over Duran and Palomino by themselves enough for greatness i'm not so sure.

Only the Benitez defeat was 'prime' though. He was chucked into the lion's den against locche first time out (if you can call a guy who never threw a punch in anger a lion!)... And he did beat, an admittedly ageing locche in the return. Think you're underselling him a bit.

I think on the whole the 140lb division was quite weak with the major talent being at lightweight and welterweight, he found a happy home in the middle. He was a very good boxer but he was limited at the same time, that Benitez beat him aged 17 is impressive no matter which way.

I think that was the point harrier. I'd agree that light welter wasn't strong then and there aren't many names on Cervantes' resume. He was still Still a good win for anyone never mind a 17 year old.

I read an interesting article a while back on Benitez.. In the run up to the Duran fight:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1125178/1/index.htm

I'm not suggesting it was anything other than a very good win, being limited doesn't stop him from being a world level fighter.

Benitez was great, but if he had Leonard or Hearns dedication and discipline to the sport then he had the potential to be the best of his generation. The bloke barely trained and he gave Leonard big problems imagine if he had come into the ring in good shape. That unfortunately is the story of Benitez in general, i think he had too much success before he was really mature enough to deal with it. Now we look back on a colourful character who underachieved for his talent, when we could possibly be saying the best defensive fighter ever.

Good article, but I'd say Benitez just about qualifies for greatness - albeit not at the higher echelon of it, and definitely not as highly as he would have done if he'd have shown even half as much dedication as he had God-given talent.

Incredible, natural athleticism and freakish reflexes / levels of anticipation. Can't teach a young'un to fight the way, that's for sure.

Seven years at world title level, in a superb era, isn't too shabby and probably doesn't register as impressively as it should with his critics as it's easy to forget that he was still just a baby when he got there. Should certainly have been at the top longer, mind you. No arguments there. But what he did manage in his time there was mightily impressive.

I appreciate that Cervantes, like an Ike Quartey or a Kostya Tszyu, probably falls in to that category of 'as good as you can be without being great', rather than being a great in his own right, but Benitez outscoring him at such a ridiculously young age makes it something very close to a great win, for me. His maturing frame meant he was never going to be a 140 pounder for long, but once he'd beaten another damn good fighter in Palomino for the 147 lb title it took perhaps the second greatest Welter of them all to get rid of him.

I know it sets a bad precedent to think along these lines, but I suspect Benitez could have held the 147 title for a long time in another era.

Likewise, no shame in the defeat to Hearns, as I personally think that Tommy was close to unbeatable at 154. Hearns, in the end, was just a bit too rangy and hard-hitting for Benitez, but Wilfred fighting off the ropes and in the corners for much of the fight against Hearns, and seeing through the full fifteen rounds, cements his place as one of the best defenders of the lot.

Certainly never saw anyone else make Tommy miss and shut his attack down like that. Not Leonard, not Hill, nobody.

His schooling of Duran was one of the best pure exhibitions of the sweet science ever recorded, for me. Duran wasn't at his best at 154, fair enough, but Hagler at 160 couldn't do a job nearly as good as the one Benitez managed, and Duran did pick up titles at both Light-Middleweight and Middleweight eventually. He even showed Duran a few tricks in the art of inside fighting, usually Roberto's forte, and Duran's reaction and behaviour after the final bell showed that he knew he'd just been taught a lesson or two!

The fight against Hope, too. Again, Hope was no Mike McCallum, but he was a good, solid world titlist who was made to look like a rank amateur in that one. There was one round - might have been the ninth, though I'm not one hundred percent sure off the top of my head - where Benitez spent near enough the entire round in a corner and still didn't take a worthwhile punch, despite Hope throwing everything at him. Great knockout in the end, too, to show that he had a bit of cutting edge to go with that fancy-dan stuff.

Suppose I'd better add a counter argument after that in the interests of fairness, though! Definitely agree that Benitez's lack of commitment and focus knocks him down a peg or two, certainly putting him behind a few names who were born with less gifts but who achieved far more. He also wasn't the perfect fighting machine by any means, having a tendency to switch off in rounds and get lazy when he really should have been driving home the advantage. On the outset, his list of wins read more 'very good' in general than they do 'great', but I can't help but take in to account the manner in which he achieved them.

He was definitely revered and rated exceptionally highly in his pomp. I believe in 1982, after beating Duran but before losing to Hearns, Ring Magazine listed him already amongst their top ten pound for pound fighters of all time. Seems crazy now, but in fairness to them Benitez did look on his way to establishing that kind of legacy at that point.

Interesting story about Benitez, though, is that he apparently already suffered with some kind of mental deficiency / retardation long before he'd even started boxing. He certainly seemed child-like and very simple in a few of his post-fight interviews, and if it's true then it makes it even more remarkable that he was able to do what he did before the wheels fell off.

An underachiever and it's a bitter pill to swallow that a man with so much talent didn't maximise it, but still just about great in my eyes. He just could and should have been greater, that's all.

I believe the ring did have him that high chris. Not sure where they had leonard at the time!

And yet, not the most talented boxer of his siblings, according to the article I linked. Just the most dedicated up to the Cervantes fight, whereafter, the highlife took over.

Didnt realise he had issues from such an early age chris, though I did know that what was perceived as pugilistic dementia was evident towards the latter end of his career.

Apparently, after a fight in Argentina, the promoter ran off with his purse and passport, after a fight where he'd barely thrown a punch, and left him stuck there for months with dementia.

Barely knows his own name, these days. All very sad, another boxing legend penniless and in ill health.

Your ring is rated highly at the Oyster also Milky..........

Never thought much of Cervantes personally......Thought he looked crap in losing to a 17 year old.........(17!!!) and beat a bunch of no marks...........

Although he did beat a banged out by Duran, Dejesus.......

Timing was everything for this guy..........

Benitez could have been more dedicated but unfortunately he was around at the wrong time for greats and I imagine he loses to Leonard and Hearns If he had lived in a monastery........

Timing is everything in life..........Had Benitez been around now he's a bonafide top 20 ATG

Beats Manny everytime although he loses to Oscar and Floyd everytime.........But with the amount of crowns available he could have a ten year longevity at the top a la Marquez..Was he around today........

Too much too fast perhaps..

Just the way it is..

He beats Oscar more often than not, if Mosley could get to him then Benitez certainly should.

Oscar owns him with the jab like Hearns did........

Oscar doesn't have anything like the jab of Hearns or a 78" inch or the power, totally different animals.

He owned Chavez with his jab and made him quit........He stopped Mayorga at 154........and Vargas at 154......

But he doesn't have any power.........okay.......

Not what I said is it, not the power of Hearns and owning Chavez with a jab is a little bit different to beating Benitez with one.

The whole issue of Benitez raises the question of it there should be an age limit to turning pro and fighting for major belts. It can't be good for a 16 year old getting banged about by adults before they have physically developed.

We'll agree to disagree.......

azania wrote:The whole issue of Benitez raises the question of it there should be an age limit to turning pro and fighting for major belts. It can't be good for a 16 year old getting banged about by adults before they have physically developed.

They lied about his age when he first fought in the US, az. His father was a trainer and he lived in a gym from a really early age. Probably took blows then that accumulated. Ironic that a guy who was renowned for not getting hit, has a career cut short by pugilistic dementia.

I'm sure such complicated requirements like asking for a legit birth cert is not out of the question. BTW I am really 100.

Benitez and LaMotta/Chuvalo are the starkest contrasts you can find in boxing, one a defensive master who barely took a clean blow and the other two revered for being able to take punishment. Yet it's the defensive master who ends up with pugilistic dementia.

Funny you should mention lamotta, had that exact same conversation about him just the other day. How the guy has a brain cell left is remarkable enough, but he's about the most lucid old timer there is... And he is about 142 now.

He and Chuvalo were almost built for punishment, short and stocky with thick skulls and very short necks, both have all their faculties intact. The Valentines day massacre alone would have been enough to ruin most fighters and leave them a mess in later life.