Ouch. Having taken narrow decisions in two of the best fights of the first round, Benny Lynch of Scotland and Pascual Perez, from somewhere less good, rattle into one another in what might be the best of the Quarter Finals. Fascinating to see Perez deal with a true ironman and fascinating to see if Lynch can outwork the hardest working flyweight of them all. WAR, that's what's on my mind. Benny Lynch (seeded six) was a puncher. Not a darkening one, but nor just a stinging one, as Jackie Brown would no doubt attest after swallowing a flush, trapping right hand in the first round of their mid-1930s contest for a strap. Brown got up but he was never again in the fight. Lynch now deployed his left-hook, an even better punch, and Brown was sent to the canvas thrice more in the first. Keeping count of the knockdowns in the second round is difficult; the referee finally rescued the hapless Brown and Lynch had arrived. Elite flyweights Pat Palmer and Syd Parker followed in the trail of destruction, both succumbing to stoppages, the former falling short in a crack at Lynch’s strap. Despite his dominance, the title picture remained confused. Lynch righted it early in 1937 when he bested Small Montana, the only other man on the planet with a claim to the flyweight championship. Their fight was not one-sided. Montana was perhaps the only man to really stretch the primed flyweight Lynch and according to the United Press report he stretched him all the way to the final round where their toe-to-toe battle was settled in the Scotsman’s favor. He swaggered in the ring and launched sudden two-fisted attacks that sometimes seemed to have no end in front of crowds of forty-five thousand. He had it all. This content is protected Pascua Perez (seeded 3) was one of the great champions at any weight, winning the title and then successfully defending it on nine separate occasions. This was a part of his incredible 53-1-1 run, stretching from his first fight in 1955 and up to 1960, when the great Pone Kingpetch finally unseated him. The night he took the title from Yoshio Shirai in Japan, Perez weighed a mere 107lbs although standing just under five feet tall he was in no way underweight. Perez would never scale the full poundage of the flyweight limit in his championship career, though he embodied the style and did the damage of a much more physical man. A jab both probing and thudding was primary but he was happy to lead with the right hand and did so often; his wheelhouse was the inside, where he kept low and slugged to the body before deftly moving upstairs with the same savage precision. His demeanor in the ring was one of fierce attention. This content is protected So what outcome do we see for these two under the following rules? 15 round fight. 1950s referee. 8oz boxing gloves. Cast your vote and explain yourself in a post below! You have 3 days.
Here's the thing: Lynch wasn't just considerably bigger, Perez was used to dealing with that, but he throws the same sort of fuselage, and he is violent and persistent on the inside. What I see: Perez just about out-duking Lynch up close by the middle rounds but paying a two-handed toll on the way in. Lynch's punches won't always be meaningful but there will be scoring punches and those scoring punches will take a toll. There will also be occasions where Lynch rides his success on the outside to the inside. I think he edges a very close, very violent, rather legendary war over fifteen rounds maybe a little controversially.
I've gone for Benny too, probably by close, gruelling decision. Perez dealt with all sorts but seemed to really excel against the varying sub-types of the roughly classical stand-up and technician modes, usually skilled and widely tested guys, very good at what they did, but lighter hitting. Ones maybe not entirely comfortable inside his wheelhouse. Shirai, Dower, Yaoita, Espinosa, Kingpetch, Yonekura, Arias etc. Ursua was a big hitter but not in Perez's class. Lynch wasn't that type of fighter. He did have very nimble, educated footwork, and tremendous natural balance when dictating the distance and fighting/countering on the move, but was a big puncher with it. Great at both catching people on the way in with either hand and/or using his strength to mug them up close, tangle them up and drive them backwards. Good at shortening his punches too at that range. A bit wild, reckless and sloppy on occasion but clearly a natural, intuitive ring general with plenty of moves from outside of the box, and like Matt said, made of iron. Great at making the other man do what he doesn't want to do. I'm not saying that he'd always be outhustling, outpunching Perez at close range where Perez was so in his element, but I think he'd have plenty of joy there even if having to take shots and mix it in with spells of lateral movement and distance control. Perez was used to having to work hard to close the distance but I could see him having to work twice hard as usual in that sense, avoiding being turned too often, thrown off balance with shifts and then being twatted at mid-range with hooks and inverted uppercuts when trying to get underneath. It's going to exact a toll, and I don't think he has enough of an advantage in his own zone to quite offset it all of the time. Lynch UD15 in a violent fight where he has to take a lot of punishment but alternately boxes, slugs, shimmys, bruises and foxes his way to the finish line by a head.
I know Perez, the unorthodox midget maestro, was usually adept at boxing longer types - but as Tin said, Lynch has that added component of size, short power and violence with his boxing, and is also within the same class 'level'. He looks, and performed, extremely impressive H2H. I think this fight would have some very nasty inside and close range fighting, but with Lynch working well on the outside at points to earn a close decision.
I share the sentiments of others, on how close this match-up would be - and some great points are made in favor of Lynch. I can barely separate the two. I stated, in Lynch's previous round, that there was a point at which he was not entirely, but virtually unbeatable. I would also say that, of only a handful of men who might best Lynch, Perez was one of them. That said, it remains ridiculously close. Lynch posed not only a wide a array of tools in his powerful armory, but also an erratic use of movement. However, Perez had his own brand of effective footwork, which could see him spring forward like a Jack-in-the-Box, delivering an accurate, two-fisted attack, as he did so. He could also catch you a couple more times on his way out. For this reason, I think Perez takes an early lead, looking good in the eyes of the judges, with his darting in and out on fresh legs causing Lynch difficulties, as he aims to pin Perez down. By the mid-rounds, Lynch has begun to time and connect on Perez with hard counters, which takes a fair bit of steam from his legs and, going into the second half of the fight, it turns into a classic toe-to-toe battle, with both men confident that they can duke this out successfully. With Perez ahead on the cards, going into the eleventh, Lynch has it all to do - and, looking the stronger in the championship rounds, he almost does. But, Perez has just enough left to keep Lynch from romping home, down the straight; enough to hang on and maintain a slender lead, gaining sufficient numbers on two of the Judges scorecards, to snatch the victory by a hair. SD 15 victory for Perez.
Benny could effectively hurt his opponents as his punches didn't always have to travel a long distance to do so. Due to the frequent close quarter action, I personally believe this would be a difference maker in this match.
Lynch stops Perez late as a hideous cut compounds swelling on the left eye and prompts the referee to rescue a near-blinded Perez after 13 hard rounds. Perez, who dominated early exchanges with right hands to the body as Lynch sought to find the distance, first displayed swelling around the left eye after the fifth, the same round the Scotsman clearly won. By the tenth the left eye was all but useless as Lynch repeatedly made Perez pay a toll in jarring right hands. When a skidding jab opened a long cut in the eleventh and the dominating Lynch set to work upon it int he eleventh and twelfth, the result had been writ. Lynch joins Chionoi Chartchoi and Jimmy Wilde in the semi finals.
