Underrated, or as some have said in recent months, overrated? Does he get into a top 50 MW list? Why or why not?
overrated. he got that way thru the generous coverage and favortism of KO magazine but in reality he had too many losses, always lost to Griffith, and Valdez, too slow, not sharp enough. but once in a while he came up with a big win. The contenders of Hagler's day were better, more sophisticated.
Yes he makes my top 50 easily. Even when Bennie had an off night you always got a tough fight from him. There are quite a few Champions who cross my mind that Bennie would have beaten.
Lots of really good middleweights, but he certainly warrants a place among the top 40 middleweights of all time, and I could see him breaking into the lower echelon of the Top 30, too. Wouldn't place him any higher than no.25, personally, because he was a bit inconsistant, even at his best.
Benny had that great run leading up to the Monzon fight, and he did put a daze on Carlos with that overhand right, but his losses to Valdez, Hayward, and others puts how he would have done with others in a top fifty in doubt. Still I have him just getting in.
Brisco would have been more than a handfull in any era of middleweights. Rough and tough, always ready to rumble, he was similar to jerry quarry in that he was one of the best fighters never to win a title. He even held the great carlos monzon to a draw in their first fight and gave him all he could handle in their 2nd fight.
Agreed, plus a lot of the fighters he lost to like Griffith and Luis Rodriguez were faded remnants of the previous decade. IMO the '70s era was a big step down from the '60s, with the obvious exception of Monzon of course. Even Valdez would've had his hands full with the best of the '60s IMO - Tiger, Giardello, Griffith, etc. - and Briscoe was a step down from him. Basically, Briscoe was one of the top contenders (and no more) in one of the less distinguished eras of middleweight history. I think he would've had trouble breaking the top 5 if he was a contender in the '60s. In short, I could probably name 50 middleweights that I would rate as better than him.
Disagreed there. Both Briscoe and Quarry had numerous shots at winning titles and simply weren't good enough. The best fighters to never win titles are the ones that actually were good enough, but were denied the opportunity for whatever reason - fighters like Charley Burley, Lloyd Marshall, Eddie Booker, Jimmy Bivins, etc.
Those guys might not have won titles either if they only got two or three shots against fighters capable of beating them. You don't necessarily have to be good to win a world title anyway, given a right place at the right time occurence.just look at Corro. the 70s middleweight division was packed with good fighters, as middleweight usually is.(up until the last fifteen years or so)Who cares if it was a step down from the 60s.
He had a really good career & nobody was ever in for an easy nights work if they signed to fight the guy. I always wondered how far his career could've gone if he could've quit his job and had a top shelf trainer/manager for that final polishing.
