I heard someone saying it a robbery in the comments before,I also heard Palomino complaining about the decision too,by I only watched till R7,any opinion guys?
Very close fight IMO. If memory serves me correct Benitez pulled it out in the last couple rds. Superb fight
I thought Benitez beat him fairly clearly. Palomino rallied late but not before Benitez had already done enough, barring knockdowns. The decision went to the right guy.
Palomino worked hard all the way through and I can understand why he felt he deserved the decision, particularly as Benitez couldn't break an egg until he moved up to light-middleweight. Palomino said afterwards there was nothing on Benitez's punches but the challenger was still landing, still scoring, still building up the points and at the end of 15 rounds, his boxing took him to a deserved decision and the title.
I couldn't call it a robbery. Even though there were a lot of very close rounds, Benitez bagged somewhat more of the cleanly won stanzas. The Gibbs and Edson cards were around the right ballpark, in my view --- a good number of drawn rounds. More to the point, however, is that Benitez was quite brilliant - It's probably up there with his performance against Cervantes. His work would have most certainly caught the eye of the crowd and the judges and he exhibited these moments of brilliance often. Palomino, on the other hand was just relentless, albeit more workmanlike; less flashy - perhaps not credited as highly as he might have been for his efforts. However, all things considered, Palomino would have been immensely lucky to walk away with the decision and this outcome would have been considerably controversial. As a side note, Howard Cosell's commentary was dire. Anyone listening to him would have thought Benitez was pitching a shutout. He really didn't do the quality of the fight as a whole any justice.
Not even close to a robbery no a clear win for Benitez in a competitive fight. Wilfredo Benitez vs Carlos Palomino 1 Benitez 2 Even 3 Benitez 4 Palomino 5 Palomino 6 Benitez 7 Benitez 8 Benitez 9 Benitez 10 Palomino 11 Benitez 12 Palomino 13 Palomino 14 Benitez 15 Benitez 145-141 Benitez Funnily enough i thought the pattern of this fight was very similar to the Cervantes fight. Benitez had the best of it in the 1st half of the fight then Palomino just like Cervantes comeback in the 2nd half to make it closer with Benitez closing the show in the last 2 rounds to win a competitive but clear decision. Overall two of the judges had it fair with Benitez winning by 3 and 4 points respectively i'm not sure what the other judge was looking at when he scored it for Palomino by 3 rounds a horrible scorecard. But yeah overall a good fight with a few nice momentum swings to make it an interesting fight worth watching.
He could certainly drift towards one-sidedness with complete ease - and I am not sure that he was even aware of what he was doing.
The decision was fine. It was a competitive fight with some tough to score rounds, but Palomino was just too easy to hit flush with varied punches compared to Benitez, and he could never impose his own jab or harder hitting offense enough to compensate. His slow feet and average reflexes were the big drawback stylistically here. It's been many years since I watched it, but I remember thinking that despite the wider official scorecards, the Emiliano Villa decision was a closer, harder to score fight for Benitez. At a quick glance of his record, Villa did not have a very impressive career, but skillset-wise he was a very sound, sophisticated boxer-puncher.
I remember Carlos got the biggest purse ever for a welterweight title fight for the time. I think it was $450,000. As for the fight, Benitez deserved the decision but many of the rounds were close and hard to score. Carlos kept up his body attack and scored well there but he missed many of his head punches, not surprisingly as El Radar was in top form, and Benitez was constantly reaching him with his pitty pat punches. Body punches should count just as much as head punches but they rarely do. The head punches are what gets everyone's attention and since Benitez landed more, he got the decision.
