What exactly were you watching? You must have seen a different fight... In no way was that a "close fight" nor did Benitez receive a "savage beating" from Duran at all.
I beg to diffa! It was a savage body beating which saw Ben **** blood for 2 days and collapse in the dressing room. These r the kind of viscous punches the average fan does not see. He never was the same and never won an important fight again. The Duran robbery was his swan song.
I will have to watch his fight with Hagler again but as I remember it he did fight him very well and the judges score cards were not incorrectly scored.
The Hearns fight. Coming out for the second round knowing what was coming takes some courage and he would have known he was outgunned and a beating was inevitable. Mind you, I bet even he couldn't have foreseen just what was incoming.
I've always saw Hearns fight a little different. Sure Duran could've thought he was in trouble from the jump, you hear stories of him being afraid of Tommy, or showed him a lot of respect when they met. In the end, I think Roberto thought he'd find an opening, and love the firefight Hearns was choosing to engage in. That is exactly what Duran wanted. I didn't like Hearns' strategy at all, even though it worked seamlessly, and people loved it, I didn't like it against Duran. Just my view of the fight, and I think he showed more courage against: Barkley and Hagler. I'll disagree with my buddy John in that I think there was quite a bit of exchanges at close range. Plenty of times for Hagler to have asserted and overpowered Duran, and I think Duran's power, in those early exchanges made him gun shy. As a smaller man, if you make the bigger/stronger fighter respect you, I'd say you showed courage to assert yourself so against the bigger guy. I agree the scoring was a little generous to Duran, and I had it a little wider, but I guess I saw a closer fight. I'd actually also add some of his later fights where he was an old man fighting much younger men. Those are truly the times where he would have had to dig deep just to stay competitive, and even win some of those fights. That took heart and courage. Finally, and surprisingly so, I think SRL 1. There was a point in that fight, even when Duran was bossing those first 5/6rounds, where SRL turned up the heat. He had recovered, knew he needed to go to war, and proceeded to unleash nasty punches to the body, trying to hurt the smaller man coming up. He had bad intentions with those punches. As a fighter, who is moving up, to face an ATG in the making already, who is bigger, taller, faster etc etc; who during the fight, just took your best punches, and is now firing back and trying to impose himself. I'm no boxer, but human nature tells me, that's a moment where some may tuck tail and shell up, or you rise to the challenge. Duran rose to the challenge that day.
KO magazine scored 2 rounds for Duran out of 15 against Benitez. They weren't too far of the mark. Benitez put on a clinic.
Yes have another look mate. Many a time over the years it has come up in here how poor to downright terrible the scoring was. Even on better cards it's still a great effort by Duran, absolutely. Truth be told he never should have been so close to stealing that fight.
The thumping body attack came from Benitez that night. He has never pounded the body more impressively. It was very well noted and had plenty of mention in fight reports.
I think you failed to see the brutal counters which left Wilfred trembling. When he collapsed in the dressing room, doctor said "his midsection looked like it had been pounded with a steel mallet and tenderized." There is great coverage of the fight with pics of Wilfred collapsing in the March 1982 issue of "Sportsman" magazine.
Well I watched the Hagler -Duran fight again last night after not seeing it in awhile. . Hagler won it because he was busier than Duran. I agree Hagler was winning after round 12., however many of the early rounds were close.
I think he showed some heart in his fights with Esteban Dejesus ....he showed that he could handle adversity