Thomas Hearns W 15 Wilfredo Benitez

There's no maybe at all. Hearns was already in solid control of the fight by the time his hand was injured in the 8th. He'd already shown he was content to box all night and had only strayed from this on one occasion. The tone was completely set. If anything Benitez did slightly better after Hearns hurt his hand but it was still a 10-5 or 11-4 fight.

 

Hearns was leery of something. He was not rushing in. First time I ever saw him miss with body punches. Benitez was amazing.

 

Hearns was following Steward's gameplan which was well documented. The only thing he was "leery of" was playing into Benitez's hands by following him into the corners and throwing punches with gay abandon. Even SRL had to scale back and pick his moments.

 

Great technical fight.Benitez gave a défense clinic but did not achieve too much offensively.Good effort by both guys

 

well the Maurice Hope fight was probably a fluke, but they were aware of that looping right. Certainly Hearns knew not to walk right into Wilfred like he did other guys.

 

It was 100% gameplan not some special fear of the Benitez right hand. He'd belted Duran almost at will with no great trauma to Roberto. The Hope stoppage was an outlier.

 

Hearns tried at first to get Benitez on the ropes and he was not doing well missing most of his punches, which was amazing to see. then he started to back up and motion for Wilfred to go to ring center. Which was the better move for him..

 

I thought Wilfred looked a tad flat in this fight, of course with him you never knew what you'd get

 

*sigh*

 

Benitez was a tough customer. Outclassed Duran, which I am sure Emanual was aware of Hearns usually didn't get intimidated by fighters. As a matter of facts, Hearns didn't really read up on his opponents or pay much attention, which at times I thought wasn't too smart. Although he is one of my favorite fighters.

 

A very good chessmatch type of fight.

And,yes,Leonard stopping both of these guys is a magnificent feat.

 

Yes it was . The guys Ray beat in such a short time Benitez,Duran and Hearns, including Kalule was incredible. In that era. I don't think Ray could deal with either guy much on the outside, so he knew he had to fight them both on the inside. or get on the inside. With Wilfred, he said it was a mirror image of himself. And his speed helped him beat Wilfred to the punch at times most other guys could not. With Hearns he waited for Hearns to get in close and countered. That happened when Tommy was opening up and Tommy got careless. In round 13 he got tired and Ray threw everything at him. regardless of what Angelo said about blowing it.. In a way Wilfred greater defense than Ray prevented Hearns from just walking in and hitting him and then being in position for counter, and also the fact the fight was a year and 3 months after the first Ray fight, and Tommy was more experienced and learned from the 81 fight toi not be as careless. Either way, Ray engaged both guys more because he had to.. And his defense was not as great as Wilfred.