It is really tragic what has happen to Benitez there will never be another Wilfred I believe he was top ten ranked when he was only 15 and then of course beat a legend in his prime when he was only 17. The guy was a true prodigy.
The fact that you're not an official judge makes the world a better place. You always assume the fix is in when cards like this get brought up by the judges, never taking into account that some people just can't score for ****. Leonard dominated him, even though I do agree Benitez was not in peak form (and that comes from watching the fight, not going by hearsay about his training camp habits).
Leonard-Benitez was briliant tactical fight within arms length of both fighters. It was competitive, but Leonard was always a 'step head' of Benitez when it came to defense and landing sharp counters. These two decided to box sensibly and punch within range, rather than letting it all hang out.
I thought Hearns/Benitez was the more competitive match (most rounds being close and competitive, Hearns's offensive output giving him the edge in most), though I also thought Benitez looked a fair deal better in that fight than he did against Leonard.
Now sweet pea, play nice. Usually my scoring over the decades has been decent, but I have taken flak on my scoring of the srl-wilfredo match over the years, enough so that I'll look over the film and see what I think now. Recently I looked over the Ellis-Patterson bout again and had it a draw. Neither set the world on fire that night. I never thought the Patterson crowd had that much to gripe about with the decision. Nuff said.
Robbi, I like the way you saw their fight. Before going back and looking at it again I scored it so close because of how many of srl punches missed or glanced do to Wilfredo's defence. He threw far more punches and many of them looked to connect but didn't. In response as the rounds went by Wifred did connect often when Ray missed with short jabs. But I'm going to go look at it again.
Thats exactly what I thought when I read the post, whats maybe even more amazing is that he'd got himself in position for a title shot at that age?