SRL-Benitez.

**** agreeing to disagree.I'll not stand for this kind of hyperbole

almost felt sorry for him after being outscored without taking much punishment at all in a few probing opening rounds?.You'll want to stay away from the Hilton loss then:yepBrutal.

 

I think i would have had Ray 5\6 or so points up if i ever bothered to score it.

don't think it was all that close myself either to be honest.But more of a "Leonard consistently winning competitive rounds" kind of deal, rather than a schooling or thrashing.Definitely not a fight where Benitez was consistently eating flush punches.

Have you seen Benitez vs Hearns yet? That one was more one-sided imo despite some of the scorecards.

 

I had it something like 10-4 or perhaps 10-3-1 going into the last round.

It was closer than the cards indicate, though. Leonard breezed through the first four and a had big rounds in the 11th and, of course, the 15th, but the rest were all close and highly contested. Benitez did take some punishment, though, and really had to grit his teeth to get past the 11th. Except for Hearns I never saw Leonard hurt someone to the body like he hurt Benitez.

Benitez was good at making out like he wasn't hurt, though, and that may be the reason as to why his bravery in this fight gets so severly underrated.

Could well be Leonard's best performance.

 

The last round is a near classic too.Pity about the stoppage

 

stylistically Ray had more handspeed than Wilfred and was stronger mentally, but Wilfred was faster than most guys which is why he beats most fighters, and on this night Wilfred would have decisioned the Duran who beat Ray.

 

Well,I'm sure his hands were awfully sore after the repeated number of clean punches he was bouncing off of McCullough's head for twelve rounds,but I wouldn't really call that a struggle.A struggle would be the gruelling fight with In Jin-Chi,the fight with a one-armed Jesus Chavez,or the closely-contested fight with Guty Espadas Jr.All of which were above 122,by the way.



People tend to overstate how good a fighter is at a certain weight.I really don't see Benitez being any different at 154 than what he was at 147.And as popular as it is to state otherwise,I don't really see it with Tommy Hearns,who many swear became this all invincible force at 154.

 

SRL didn't play Benitez game. He respected Benitez so much and he knew that he had to be cautious in getting drawn into Benitez defensive smarts. SRL never committed to opening up a consistent attack on Benitez. He would score, control distance, reset and repeat. Benitez at times was standing waiting for more attack to come his way just so he could slip around and land blows of his own. SRL didn't play that, and he frustrated Benitez. You can tell though, SRL was thinking so hard in this fight, ultimately he showed so much respect to Benitez in that fight.

 

labeling a fight a schooling based on rounds scored is absolute nonsense. You can have an extremely competitive fight, scored 15 rounds to 0. Ultimately, there was immense electricity and tension between SRL and Benitez. SRL was probably mentally exhausted after the fight was over because thats the cautious fight that he felt he needed to fight.

 

Benitez beat up, schooled, and knocked out Randy Shields who would take the best shots of Hearns, Cuevas, and Leonard. He had an wealth of unused talent.

 

I will confirm this. Benitez won but one round on my card

but when Sugar says this was his toughest fight, I can think of at least two others tougher: Duran 1, Hearns 1, and def Norris who won every round!

 

No he wouldnt