I've been watching this fight a few times...Is anyone else impressed with the performance(s) in this fight? Carter was an offensive machine, his speed and leverage on his punches...and Benton with his defensive rolling and parrying Carter's attack. The sixties had fantastic talent depth at middle and welter...maybe the deepest talent pool ever at welter/middle ???
Despite all the dislike of Carter and the way his career eventually went, he really was a fine fighter for a while.
"No welterweight in the world belongs in the ring with me" said the Hurricane as Emile Griffith bounced along the canvas in Round 1.
I didn't see the fight-and it's been a while since I read Carter's autobiography,'The Sixteenth Round',but if I remember right,Carter claimed that Benton "had a weak spot under his left titty."
I think there was great depth of talent at middlweight all the way up until the early-to-mid 90s, when the super-middle division became popular and syphoned off a lot of the talent. It definitely seemed to impact on middleweight more than the 154 division ever had done. The 1960s may have been the best. Hard to say. Middleweight was so jam packed so often.
I recently watched that fight on Classic sports. To be honest i was very surprized Benton lost to Carter. It may have Carter's best fight.
