Four Kings - George Kimball

Duran looked uninspired, which could have been from his lack of training and/or lack of ability to get down to proper weight. Like you said, going up against that kind of wizardry can be frusterating. Especially for someone that had already quit in the ring once previously.

I was commenting on how suddenly in recent months Benitez has been elevated to his status amongst the Four. He may have been just as talented if not more talented (as I had mentioned already), yet he never did what the other four had done. His accomplishments are few and his career burnt out quite fast. Benitez's defence is incredible, and the talent he showed in the ring was incredible. However, Kirkland Laing's natural talent was incredible as well. Yet, he squandered it.

At best compared to the Four; Benitez is just a champion amongst legends.

 

The commentators note that Duran reached 154 lbs well before the fight, and actually think he made weight too soon. This would indicate that he overtrained rather than the opposite. However, the end result was in any case that he was weak and slow in the fight.

This all sounds reasonable.

 

Duran definitely trained hard for the Benitez fight.He wasn't fat...overtrained i dunno, i've always just taken it as Benitez being better at 154 and having a stylistic edge at that point.Duran didn't quite have hte legs, speed or power he would need against Wilfred anymore.

And he didn't manage to thumb his eye shut in the early rounds.

 

The only thing keeping Benitez out of a Fab Four or Five or whatever was star power (or lack thereof). It certainly wan't accomplishments. Beating Cervantes at 17. Beating Palomino. Youngest triple champion. What more do you want? Seriously? Beating a borderline ATG, hard, grown man Cervantes at 17. Triple champion (which was still a great and rare accomplishment) at I believe 22. I'm repeating myself, but damn, tough crowd in this thread.
I also agree with Lora, Benitez was just better than Duran at 154.

 

I'd like people to stop trying to shoehorn Benitez in with men with greater accomplishments than Wilfred himself. Young champ? Impressive but he didn't hold any form of longevity. Triple champ? Come on, Leonard piled up trinkets too. Seriously, it's not a tough crowd it's a measure of making sure certain men get the recognition that they earned.

 

It's been a year since I've watched this fight. I'll have to sit down and take better notes since my memory is failing me right now.

 

I'm not trying to shoehorn him in to anything. Books have been written, he's been excluded. I'm not losing any sleep over it. But really, I value Benitez's triple championship as much or more than Leonard or Hearn's multiple "trinkets". Benitez won them back to back to back. Ray and Tommy, for all their greatness, kind of devalued the multiple championships of guys like Ross, Canzoneri, Benitez, and Arguello trying to one up each other. The whole Leonard - Lalonde thing with 2 titles on the line was a debacle, and Tommy jumped up to Light Heavy and kind of cherry picked a crude Dennis Andries before dropping down to Middleweight (if I recall correctly). Duran was 1-3 against the big four. Benitez was one and two. Duran had two very poor efforts. Benitez gave three very good (at least) efforts. I wouldn't rank Benitez above any of the Big Four on an ATG list, but he's in shouting distance of Tommy IMO. Benitez proved he belongs with these guys in the ring with three of them.

 

exactly. Wilfred was a great fighter. That is why Duran could not do anything to him. Duran trained hard for Benitez as he should have. Benitez had the speed advantage and that was I think Benitez best weight in someways.