rubin carter vs bennie briscoe 15 rounds mw

Carter deserved the verdict in a close one, in my opinion. Whether or not the stories of Benton being cuffed are true is anyone's guess. He did appear to be the more skilled of the two.

If you guys are willing to write off Carter's first round KO of Griffith as a mere fluke, then how about his first round blitzkrieg of the murderous punching Floro Fernandez?

Were his performances against such educated boxers as Ellis, Giardello, and Benton all just flukes as well? He may be more myth than legend to the general public's eye, but I think the opposite has become true of the more hardcore fans in my ways. I think he was an excellent, very dangerous fighter, albeit for a short time.

 

I definately think the Griffith KO was a fluke. Id pick Griffith over Carter 9 times out of 10, it just happened that the fight they fought was that one where Carter got lucky. No his win over Fernandez wasnt a fluke. Fernandez was the perfect style for him, a march forward, take one to give one slugger (and people seem to forget that Fernandez first started getting noticed as a lightweight). Ellis was a novice when he fought Carter and weighed something like 155 pounds. He clearly wasnt at the height of his development which he reached several years and 30+ pounds later... Carter lost to Giardello, and as stated above the Benton fight was a razor thin victory over a guy who may have been forced to hold back. Furthermore, Benton, Fernandez, and Mims were interesting and good challengers but they certainly werent great fighters or championship calibre. The fact is that the one win that Carter has on his resume that stands out as special is largely regarded as a fluke result and that came over a welterweight. His entire mystique is a myth. He only fought for five years, 1961 to 1966, he only had 40 fights and failed to win 13 of them, he lost at literally every phase of his career and on several occasions to guys he was favored to beat, and was washed up before he was thirty. People forget that even his title shot was undeserved. Joe Archer should have been given that title shot but Giardello knew that Carter's style would be easier to beat than Archers. Then Carter blew the opportunity by being too passive against a very bad looking Giardello who clearly won the fight. Carter later stated he was worried about going 15 rounds. I just think the guy is overrated based on a few highlight reel KOs, and bald head and goatee, and a bad attitude.

 

I acknowledged that his mystique is blown out of proportion to the general public. I personally believe him to be guilty of the crime of which he was committed, as well. That doesn't take away from the fact that he was, for a short time, an excellent fighter. Not an all time great, or even really a potential one, but a genuinely very good, very dangerous fighter. People in the know these days tend to write him off completely because of the way he's been portrayed by the mainstream media. I don't get why we can't just look at him (and all fighters, really) from an objective standpoint without outside forces clouding our views.

I agree with the circumstances surrounding his career that you present, klompton (outside of the Giardello fight being a clear loss for Rubin), I just don't believe he was some kind of fluke fighter. He showed the tools that made him one of the more talented contenders of the era for a small period of time.

 

The ko of Fernandez wasn't a fluke..not by any means, but the Griffith ko was. A rematch would have the soon to be comfortably middleweight Griffith maybe getting rattled early, but turning the tables on Carter neatly for a unanimous decision. Likewise had they been rematched with Griffith as middleweight champion...he would have figured out Carter well by then.

 

We do a lot of speculating here sir, in case you may not have noticed...that's what the classic forum is all about. You seem to overrate Carter a bit...and ignore the fact that Griffith improved...as well as defeated the man that mopped the floor with the Hurricane.

 

Jimmy Ellis was just starting out, having his first fight at the garden and only weighed 155 pounds when he fought Carter. Lets not pretend Carter beat the 185 pound HW champion Ellis who was far more sturdy and far better than he was as a MW. Don Fullmer also beat the MW Ellis and nobody is pretending he was anything special. Ellis also lost to Benton, Hank, and Mims at MW. Clearly at MW he was not the type of guy you point to in order to say that beating him establishes you as something special. A year and two losses later Jimmy Ellis jumped out of the MW division, never returned, and didnt lose another fight for 5 years while winning the HW title. Carter doesnt get Credit for beating THAT Jimmy Ellis.

 

P.S. Griffith actually defeated six of the men who beat Carter.

 

Thats an interesting way of looking at things. Carter beats a green Ellis who had never beaten a fighter of worth outside of his hometown and had in fact lost most of his bigger fights but Carter gets credit for beating Ellis who accomplished much much more many years later...:-(

 

Bennie would be the one coming forward here, with that head down patented "Briscoe Trot," looking to bury his hook in the body. This is a contest of attrition, and I think that favors Bennie.

Does anybody know what Benton had to say about this? Ten competitive rounds with Carter in '63 and nine more with Briscoe in '66 (as well as training Bennie later) ought to have made George quite the expert on their comparative merits.

 

Briscoe by dec ,Carter is somewhat overated I think ,due ,in part to his physique.
Bennie is a diluted Tiger, but still enough to rumble over Ruben.