Cue as could hit like a hammer but it was next to impossible to hit prime Benitez with a hammer. Benitez via 15 round decision 10-5 in rounds.
Have to go with Benitez to win a comfortable decision. Cuevas would be most dangerous in the early rounds, but Benitez should be able to avoid being taken out. Once settling into his pace, Benitez conducts a clinic. As an earlier poster stated, too bad this fight never took place!
Pipino Cuevas didn't belong in the ring with a vintage Wilfredo Benitez, who would have taken the Mexican fighter apart. Moreover, Cuevas's highly protective management undoubtedly knew it. - Chuck Johnston
Yes, this is right:good....people shouldn't mistake the past it version of Benitez...vs Moore and Hilton, or even vs Hamsho with the great wizard who beat Cervantes and Duran,....he would have outclassed Pipino like Locche did Fuji.......NO CONTEST!!
Benitez might win a shut out. He’ll have been in too condition for Pipino, so I think a 150-135 type fight is likely.
Pipino Cuevas of 1979 would give anyone except maybe Leonard and Hearns fits. probably even be 50.50 with Duran, that Cuevas. The problem for him is that Wilfred Benitez was almost a carbon copy of Sugar Ray, even Sugar Ray has said so all the time. I dont see Cuevas beating Ray and i dont see him beating Wilfred either.
Benitez and Leonard have nothing in common so I don't know what Ray was smoking when he said that (if he actually did). You are also overrating Cuevas. He was always reliant on his hook and big power, a skilled boxer would always destroy him. Benitez, Hearns, any version of Duran, he couldn't cope with the crafty guys. If Palomino had forced the unification before Leonard, Benitez, Duran etc. arrived, he might've exposed him too.
I agree with you Palomino beats Cuevas. Leonard said of Benitez that it was like fighting himself on a mirror.
Don't see it. One is an offensive force with good defensive fundamentals but no defnsive wizard, and the other one is a defensive wizard with a decent offense. It maybe because Ray fought him more like a Counterpuncher which Benitez was. Overall, weird comparison.
Watch the fight, or to some degree any Benitez fight. He was something of a mimic. I think he kind of adopted the rhythm of his opponent to get into their rhythm so he could better pick up what they were doing … that was part of his radar. You watch him and Ray and you’ll see various times in the fight where he really does look like a mirror image to Ray. But when he’s fighting someone else he doesn’t, as he’s getting more into their rhythm.
I have watched the fight a few times. It looks like Ray is playing the counterpuncher which might justify the comparison.