Wilfred Benitez 1979 vs Jose Pipino Cuevas 1979, Title Unification, 147 lbs.

Different levels of Boxing knowledge. Benitez all Day

 

This content is protected

 

Benitez takes him to school.

 

Benitez wide UD

 

It's tempting to say that because he held all the cards in the way of boxing skills and slick ability, Benitez must obviously win, but i really don't know. Cuevas gets really short shrift here sometimes. Besides legitimate bone-breaking power, he was absolutely relentless in pursuit, and was extremely tough besides.

A possible template for how this might play out could well be the Randy Shields fight. Go watch Cuevas pursue, and watch him whale away with huge shots for the entire 15 rounds, never wavering, never tiring. Shields was also very good defensively but like Benitez didn't have the kind of power to give Cuevas much pause. Cuevas would eat a lot of shots, but would try to just walk Benitez down, and it would take the Puerto Ricans best, most focused effort to date to avoid those fight-ending hooks for the whole 15 rounds. This is no easy task. Not at all.

 

Poor ole Cuevas, feel sorry for him sometimes, believe the defeats by Hearns and Duran forever tarnished his legacy and standing in the pantheon of the best of all time at WW, shame.

 

Nobody's saying that.

 

You know in a 15 round bout I'M going to pick Cuevas.
In his prime he just never stopped coming.
And I don't think Benitez has enough power to deter him.
I could see Benitez quite easily banking round after round and Cuevas just erasing all that with one shot.

 

I know, so ?

 

I also think Cuevas rt hand is very overlooked. KO power there also

 

If Benitez can avoid and frustrate the much faster (but no not as powerful,
but power is only good if you can land it) left hooks of a prime Leonard and
Hearns I see him having very few issues avoiding Cuevas's power or
riding the punches for the most part of a distance fight.
Benitez by close dec.

 

Benitez takes Cuevas apart.

In fact, I see Benitez stopping him late.

 

Sorry, guess I'm more attuned to sarcasm than I realize.

 

I'll take Pipino but not with a ton of conviction. I think Benitez would win a bunch of rounds, but Cuevas will never stop coming and I don't think Benitez can stop his pressure head on and will have to play matador for 45 minutes. My very tentative money is that Pipino catches him either early and stops him cold or finishes him near the end.

And yes, Pipino gets shorted here. Always.