Leonard- Benitez ... terrible stopage ...

On the day of the fight wasn't there a huge pile of money going on Leonard to stop Benitez in the 15th?

 

any youtube clip of this stoppage

 

I couldnt agree more! Ive been saying that from the night I watched it live.

 

Yeah it was pretty much bull****...but far from controversial. That was one of Ray's best performances.

Boxrec states that the ref may have been concerned for Wilfredo's safety because some dude had died not long before that fight. I have read that elsewhere before but of course thats really just speculation.

 

Yeah, poor stoppage, although Benitez didn't complain, he was would have lost comfortably on points regardless.

 

Indeed. And illustrative of the favoritism shown to Leonard throughout his career. It was an injustice for Benitez, since instead of getting credit for going the distance in a competitive bout, he is recorded as having been stopped in a fight he was in no danger of being stopped in. I remember being very upset about it, even though I had Leonard ahead on my score card.

It doesn't matter what the score cards read or what the decision would ultimately have been. This is like saying that killing a person who would have died next week anyway is some how less unjust than killing a person who has many years left to live. If it's an unjust act, it's just as unjust no matter the outcome. (Benitez's reaction is also irrelevant to the call. So he showed good sportmanship. That somehow justifies the referee's actions? Please.)

The same is true with the other side of the argument. A lot of people criticize Richard Steele because he stopped the Chavez-Taylor fight on the grounds that Taylor was ahead on the cards. This is irrelevant. To permit Taylor to continue in his condition would have been an injustice. Steele made the right call.

I forget who was officiating the Benitez-Leonard fight, but he made the wrong call.

 

Boxrec is referring to the Willie Classen death. That got A LOT of press at the time. It was a huge story.

 

Which also more or less was used to justify the Weaver/Dokes stoppage as well, correct?

Talk about fallout.

 

Yeah, it was unnecessary, but Leonard was whooping his ass by that point and was on his way to a wide decision victory.

 

Sadly the condition of Wilfred today is such, that with 20/20 hindsight, the fight was probably stopped far, far too late......

 

it was a bad stoppage and i watched a Versus version of it which Bob Arum hinted there could have been some 'dodgy' people wanting to stop the fight to win money

 

This stoppage always bothered me as well. Benitez gets dropped, gets up, Leonard throws about 3 punches at him, all of which Benitez ducks and Carlos Padilla stops the fight. I have no idea why they kept putting Padilla in high profile fights for so long. He was the most indecisive referee I have ever seen.

Scartissue

 

Bad stoppage that thankfully didn't make any difference as to who was going to win.

 

come on man he was taking some sharp jabs but he wasnt taking a beatign in the true sense of the word.

he took much more when he broke his ankle agaisnt moore, took a awful beating in the corner. also benitez's notoriously bad middleweight campaign.

there are other factors than 10 seconds more in his title defence