Sugar Ray Leonard v Wilfred Benitez

If my aunty had balls she'd be my uncle. Leonard owned Benitez with his speed and combination in that fight, I don't think it was close.

 

I hold Leonard's perfomance against Benitez as one of the best masterclasses of boxing I've seen against a top opponent. I think it even edges out Whitaker-Chavez.

Anyone who's gonna do the same old song and dance about how Benitez - just like Duran and Hagler - was in poor shape, shot etc etc should be slapped. I'd happy to oblige, actually.

 

I think Leonard would outbox Benitez in an amazingly high level technical fight. There'd be a cool staredown. Leonard would probably cut Benitez's forehead at some point. On his way to a clear points win, Leonard would hurt Benitez in the 15th round and gain a questionable stoppage.

 

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I thought (candidly, was rooting for) Benitez would win. But sometime shortly before their match, Ray was interviewed, and Wilfred's tendency to sometimes duck his head forward when he jabbed was discussed. SRL openly admitted that he was working on his uppercuts in preparation for that. Ultimately, it was indeed an uppercut which produced the final knockdown.

Benitez hardly had a first rate chin, a fact previously exposed by Bruce Curry. Dundee compared Ray's jab to that of Pastrano, and SRL used it to deck El Radar in round three. While only a momentary flash, it was still a disturbingly easy knockdown.

Harold Weston demonstrated twice that a competent technician with relatively little power could give Wilfredo headaches.

Looking back, I don't know that Benitez would have ever been able to decision SRL at their respective bests on neutral turf. Wilfred's counter punching wasn't the ideal "application" for winning against an opponent like Ray. To beat him, it was necessary to act, not react, a change which risked exposing that suspect chin more.

While a rematch was immediately agreed to, and absolutely should have taken place, Benitez did not produce vast improvement in his returns with Curry and Weston, certainly not enough to win a second go with SRL.

 

I think Benitez was the best he could be that night,and the better man won that night. However i disagree with you that it wasnt close,i have not seen the entire fight in years,but from what I remember Benitez was very competetive and I dont think ive seen a match of 2 master boxers in the same ring since. I remember Leonard pulling it out towards the end but the fight was close throughout.

 

If Benitez had a mental lapse for Leonard in '79, then Willie Benitez really is a nut-case........ Anyway, for a dude who claims he trained only "3" days for Leonard, I gotta say that Benitez appeared to be the finest fitted athlete that I ever saw who basically crawled out of bed to fight / defend against Leonard in Vegas........ Leonard took control of the fight and clearly won, but his TKO was a result of a friendly referee....... I thought Benitez was well enough to go all 15 rds and blow the decision.......... Cheers..

MR.BILL

 

If wilfredo would of trained longer than 2 weeks for a fight, and lived a boxers life he would of taken ray to the wire. On a side note if not for hamsho who beat benitez geting the title shot instead, wilfredo was geting ready to fight hagler in a super fight, it always makes me wonder how smaller fighters with good boxing brains gave hagler trouble (bobby wasts, willie monroe, ray learnard, roberto duran) could of a in shape benitez of caused marvin alot of problems?

 

he trained for 2 weeks, 3 days is just a myth

 

3 days, 2 weeks, 3 months. No excuse. It's called PRO-fessional boxing. He got paid a lot of money and had a responsibility to be ready. Hagler always was, Leonard always was, Hearns always was and in fact claimed to be overtrained against Leonard. Somehow these excuses with Benitez and Duran seem to fly. Discipline and consistency are factors that can attribute to greatness. While great, Benitez didn't always exhibit these traits. Excuses aside, I don't think he beats Hagler or Leonard on his best day.

 

I doubt it. Early in Wilfred's match with Hope, Maurice had some early success with his southpaw jab, but foolishly got away from it. During this brief interval however, the commentators opined that countering it might prove draining to Benitez. Hagler had the hardest P4P right jab in history, and he'd be far less likely to abandon it. Beyond that, Marv would have been going downstairs a lot. El Radar could take it to the body as well as anybody, but those would still be scoring blows. Anyhow, take a look at the jab Hagler used to knock the slick, peaking and rock solid Hamani silly, then the one Ray dropped Benitez with.

Regardless, Hagler-Benitez might have been an interesting switch hitting duel, if Wilfred could get inside Marv's head. (Don't forget, during his prefight staredown with Hearns, it was TOMMY who blinked. If bouts were won and lost on stare-downs, Benitez could have been utterly invincible.)

 

his fight with hearns is a under rated classic, also benitez was ment to have give tony ayala a boxing lesson in sparring, just thought i would throw that in

 

This was one of Dundee's finest works, tho it's largely unknown and he gets little credit. He put together an absolute mastermind of a strategy and SRL fulfilled it perfectly.

 

Yeah? You have any details?