When did Wilfred Benitez become over-the-hill, washed-up, shot etc. ?

Here's a good thread about Benitez' decline:

http://www.eastsideboxing.com/forum/showthread.php?t=279343

 

I think he fought great at 154. I think his over the hill was mental and not physical. He was only 24 when he fought Hearns and Duran. He moved up in weight to middleweight and fought the wrong guy in Hamsho. Hamsho was wrong for many guys. Hamsho might have been a wrong style at the age of 25, but by 26 he was mentally declining. I would say 1984. For Duran and Hearns he was fighting his best I thought, even better than at welt.

 

While not every1 may agree, I believe he was @ his peak during his initial run @154, which ended when he lost to Hearns. Even though he may have had more quickness down @140, he was still a bit raw there & his lack of maturity was apparent in his struggles with Weston & Curry. @154, he was getting better placement & power on his punches than ever before & had become an adept bodypuncher.

IMO, his decline began when he severed all ties w/ his father (after the Hearns fight iirc) & fell in w/ new trainers that didn't know how to work w/ his style & management that became fixated on cashing him out vs. Hagler. Bloating up to 160 gave him room to engage in his worst vices, & there was no positive benefit gained from the added weight. He never regained his former standing or form after the beatdown by Hamsho, & he bottomed out w/ his loss to Matthew Hilton, a straightforward plodder that should've been tailor made for him a few years earlier.

 

Agreed. 1983 is the answer.

 

The decline was after Hearns. He’d probably peaked with the Duran fight. With Wilfred, it was the early blows to the head from youth that caught up and did so rapidly. All that sparring with men when he was a child burned him out so young.

He was such a talent, it’s one of boxing’s saddest stories, what happened to him.

 

I think he was sparring men at full force at 12 years old I heard and I doubt he stopped sparring hard throughout his prime also.

 

I can’t answer the question with certainty. But I’ve always felt that moving up to middleweight was a mistake for him

 

The Hearns fight was his last hurrah and even then he wasnt nearly as active as he once was although that could have been due to Hearns' height and reach advantages. After that he really went downhill fast, laying on the ropes and in corners, and not being as offensive. He was pretty ordinary from 1983 on.

 

I agree,,,

 

The decline and damaged started YEARS earlier when Benitez's psychotic father would put a CHILD in the ring with grown men and allow his child to absorb shots like that.
That is why Benitez seemed to fall apart at a very young age.

 

The very first chink-in-the-armor I observed was his fight with Kevin Moley. It's not that there was a question about the decision, it's just that there were moves, or should I say, lack of, during the 10-rounder. He won, but was making a meal out of it, when what we should have been witnessing was, a boxing masterpiece on this clubfighter. Anyway, I recall saying to myself, "What's wrong with Benitez?" Thinking it was just a one-off because of his age, I just wasn't coming to grips that he was in the throes of the decline.