School me on Bennie Briscoe

I remember him as kinda "mechanical", very good punch; but not a great, one shot puncher. Came forward constantly, and could be hit. Great boxer-puncher opponents could engage & disengage at their choice....so the fights would be close on the scorecard. Rodrigo Valdez knocked him cold out, in a title fight.

 

Longhorn, the only thing I would mention about the Valdes fight is that he wasn't knocked cold, he got up and the ref stopped it (or maybe it was his corner), but it's immaterial because he couldn't have gone on. And that was his only stoppage loss in 96 pro bouts, which is really something. He really had a great jaw, but that right-left from Valdes was incredible. I think you were spot on when you referred to him as mechanical. In fact, I recall one article referring to him as Bennie 'The Robot' Briscoe. He had that chugging forward style with a ripping jab. It wasn't a point-getter, he would only throw in 'ones', but it was hard and what he was first and foremost was a massive body-puncher. For anyone wanting to educate themselves on Briscoe I would suggest watching the Tony Mundine fight. You could see how a boxer-puncher could outpoint Briscoe, but also see how that fighter would have to take it to the head and body to get to the end of the fight.

 

One flaw bad Bennie had that trainers never could get him to change was while he could slip punches well he never could punch when doing it, he simply stopped punching each time. For a come forward puncher it would have been a good addition to Bennie's offence had he ever been able to change this.