I don't know if this matchup has ever been posed before, but anyway..any opinions as to would win a 15 round contest at 160 between these two?
Nigel, although I loved him to bits in his heyday, seems to be one of those fighters who matches up quite unfavourably with most of history's good to great fighters in and around his weight class (not that Fernandez was a great). Not unlike Pacquiao - from a certain point of view. The bollocks-to-the-wall approach that he had at middleweight could spell either triumph or catastrophe against a bomber like Fernandez, who wasn't exactly bulletproof himself as displayed by Tiger, Fullmer and Carter. Then again, they were all physically stronger than Benn with Tiger and Fullmer also both having a more effective defence than him, even if Nigel hit harder than both of them. I'll pick Benn, but not with any unflappable degree of confidence. Fernandez, despite his own shortcomings, hit at least as hard as McClellan and a lot harder than Barkley, Watson or Eubank did.
Difference between Benn and those three is that they all had ATG chins, at least Tiger and Fullmer did, with Carter having a great set of whiskers.
I got Benn with the early stoppage more often than not...Florentino was a shaky starter, I see Nigel coming out guns blazing and landing the bombs needed to take Fernandez out. It would be like the 3 min Barkley war stretched out into 3 or 4 rounds...plenty of good two way action but with Benn's power to chin ratio winning out over FF's in the end.
The Fullmer fight went the distance and probably could've gone either way, and Floro withstood some serious punishment from Tiger before finally being stopped. The only one of those fights I would say raised any doubts about Floro's toughness would be the Carter fight. I agree with what some others have suggested in this thread. It's either Benn early, or Floro mid/late.
