H2H Benitez is the GOAT at 140

Duran faced prime Hagler and prime Hearns. You can't expect him to win those fights when they were at 154 and 160 pounds.

 

Oh.... My.... God....

You just compared Diego Corrales to Tommy Hearns.

 

Tongue in cheek before anymore of you flip out. Except the Benitez part.

 

Ranking someone behind Benitez is selling no one short.

Benitez schooled Cervantes and then literally went to school.

 

Benitez was very good in the Cervantes fight.

However Cervantes did not possess extraordinary speed, power or punch output. He basically tried to outbox Benitez from the center of the ring and failed.

17 yr old Benitez was not at his peak physically.

I think a few 140lb. guys would give this version of Benitez problems, and possibly beat him.

These include J.C. Chavez, Pryor, Meldrick Taylor and Frankie Randall. Chavez and Pryor would possibly be too physically strong for him. Taylor's ultra busy punch output could trap Benitez on the ropes for long stretches, causing him to be outpointed. Randall had the speed and power to greatly trouble him.

 

How did Benitez win the title though at 17. It doesn't make any sense.

How was he not just overwhelmed physically?

Forget the skills for a second. How was he just not blown to pieces at that age against the top guys?

 

His father had him fighting against older boys and men since he was a young child. And if you think about it, there are plenty of high school athletes who are just as fit & strong as grown men.

 

IF that were true we would see high schoolers winning track races and breaking strength records. But they never do.

 

Well, he had already been a pro 3 full yrs by the time he got a title shot. He had great defense and ring generalship, and he didn't fight a guy who had all the right kind of tools and style to exploit his relative lack of physical strength.

 

I get your logic but there's a big difference between being fast and strong enough to compete against adult athletes your size in sports versus being able to beat the very strongest and fastest men in the world your size in pure strength and speed contests.

 

And FWIW, a high school kid Trentavius Friday ran a 10.0 100-meter dash in 2014. Would have been good enough for 2nd place at the NCAA Division 1 championship that year and 8th place in the 2012 Olympics.

 

Bob Mathias won a decathlon title at 17.

Jimmy Carr went to the Olympics at 17 in wrestling (and Hamza won a greco world title at the same age).

Michael Chang win the French open at 17.

That's an age at which a precocious once in a generation athlete can compete with or be the best in the world.

 

True speed can come earlier but stamina and strength are dominated older people.

Even speed though to a lesser extent which is why high schoolers don't win.

 

I mean I think wrestling involves more strength than boxing and we have a few examples of guys being world class at the same age.

Also Benitez, while the best boxing prodigy was by no means the only. Canzoneri was about the same age when he won the featherweight title and Cuevas was 18 when he became champion. Benitez is more first among equals than an extreme outlier.

 

The bigger question should be what kind of permanent damaging are you doing to your kid having him fight in his preteens?