How good a trainer was George Benton?

He was as good as any, I gather. Worked with many of the fighters in the Duva stable, Holyfield for example. Meldrick Taylor maybe.
I've always reckoned Benton a master trainer, he was a great technician as a fighter so it figures.
Wasn't he in Frazier's corner in FOTC, with Eddie Futch, helping Yank Durham ?

 

Sensational, absolutely.

 

Although Lou Duva was the boss of the Holyfield team from 1985-1992, Benton was the muscle behind the scenes. He did most of the nuts and bolts work in the gym with Holyfield, and spent hours sitting side by side with him watching fight films in an attempt to create the architecture for keeping Evander on the winning path. Benton was a blue collar trainer. Duva was more of a motivator and spokesman. George Benton could have trained any fighter in history in my opinion.

 

This is what he said about Tyson

"When you fight a guy like Tyson, you have to think about defense first," Holyfield's trainer, George Benton, has said. "But the best defense is offense. You don't want to be runnin' from Tyson. He'll run you into the ground. You want to be steppin' away from him. Not runnin', steppin'."

 

Benton was great at teaching the art of in-range defense and in particular the circular dance that's conducted centre ring, giving the opponent the illusion that you are moving away, but being in striking range pretty much all the time.

His greatest pupil, Whitaker, perfected this, which is why he was hardly ever seen caught against the ropes.

 

Benton, Duva, and Whitaker represented the best corner team in boxing history IMO. I have never seen a fighter absorb instructions from his corner team the way Whitaker did. Constant nods along with "right" "ok" while looking at them. Benton was the strategic advisor and Duva the motivator.

 

It was a great corner, and maybe not altogether coincidentally, Whitaker started to decline once Benton left (in the lead up to the Vasquez fight). Of course other things were going on there, like Pea's lifestyle, but the corner disturbance wouldn't have helped.

 

I watched Whitaker against my fellow Scot, Gary Jacobs, just last night. And his corner included Shields and Duva. That fight was right after the Vasquez win. You're right.

Shields wasn't as calm and controlled as Benton.

 

Benton studied under Futch himself. He was there in Manila. And he was behind Spinks' defeat of Ali and someone may check me on this but I believe that he was in the corner when Monroe beat Hagler. I know for a fact that he designed the strategy for McCallum's upset of Curry -mixing method with mayhem.

He was also good enough as a pro to beat Joey Giardello and Jimmy Young. He was an unusual Philly fighter -a defensive specialist.

 

Yeah, him and Duva were in the McCallum corner. Finkel managed McCallum at the time. Not sure it was a strategy which was working up until the finish as McCallum was coming off second best, although only slightly. However, Curry dropping his hands was maybe a moment they had waited for patiently. And mayhem? Not too much of that going on throughout the fight from either fighter. If you want to call the finish 'mayhem' then you're right.

 

Speed is tough to cope with and McCallum was looking to set up a head shot with body shots. Curry had a bad habit of fighting with his hands low. By "mayhem", I think that Benton meant that you had to avoid an orderly way of punching. He believed that you follow a hook with a hook and recalled SRR throwing continues hooks even as the guy was falling. The reason for that is that usually the first hook will land on the gloves and so you "keeping hooking until you hit something solid like a head."

Mike wasn't fighting as clinically as he did against say Julian Jackson, but hey, it didn't go 6 rounds, and he managed to start closing Curry's left eye.

 

I don't agree with those who say "Curry was dominating McCallum and winning easily" Not sure when you last seen the fight, but Curry was just edging the rounds. No question that Curry was winning in terms of the entire action put together over the first 4 rounds. 2-2 or 3-1 in rounds for Curry. But it wasn't quite the clinic up until the finish as some portray it to be.

 

I agree completely. I remember watching it when I was a kid and it looked then like Curry was in control.. but it was a -tenuous- kind of control because McCallum was right there and Mike looked stronger and was loading up.

 

Benton was an excellent trainer but each trainer brings what he knows into the ring, the right trainer does not meddle with a fighters natural strengths,only tries to improve on his flaws