What caused Wilfred Benitez to decline so sharply?

actually it was none of those

drugs - myth
didn't train - myth
laying someone's sister - myth
and so forth

he simply met up with better fighters

as for Moore, Moore was already kicking the **** out of him and wouldve stopped him broken ankle or no. Of that I have no doubt

 

Moore was definitely going to beat him, indeed, however, I think the problem with Wilfred he had some damage up in the head from all the fights he had as a youth.So that's probably a major reason for the decline.

 

I don't agree with this. He met plenty of good/great fighters up through the Hearns fight. His real decline began after that fight. It was not a case of him simply meeting better fighters that led to his rather sudden decline. Moore was not "kicking ths sht" out of him. He couldn't even land properly after Benitez hurt his ankle. The knockdown was a flash type knockdown similar to ones Benitez had suffered before. He didn't appear hurt by it, just the ankle.

 

I've seen that fight. Benitez stood toe to toe with Curry and got caught and badly hurt. He never had a great chin and fought the wrong fight. It appeared he took Curry lightly. In the second fight he boxed more and won clearly. That fight was way before his decline began. He boxed many great fights after that close call.

 

That was the fight where his noticeable decline began. Hamsho was a very strong middleweight. That was a dumb choice of opponent for essentially his middleweight debut. Still, prime Benitez would have found a way to move and box and not let Hamsho run over him. What actually happened in the fight was Benitez got manhandled by the much stronger Hamsho and took more punsishment than he probably had in any fight. He was never the same after that fight.

 

I've never appreciated people saying he was re****ed. Show me an interview in which he comes off that way.

Wilfred had so much early success that he simply stopped training hard enough. He was essentially the victim of child abuse/neglect if you really want to get into it.

 

Surprised how many of these comments ignore the way that Benitez' father brought him up and trained him. Greg0rio charged people to watch 5-yo Wilfred fight bigger boys in street fights. Had him in the gym training hardcore when he was 8 years old. Had him go pro when he was still a child and throughout his career put him in brutal sparring sessions with much bigger men.

From a 1982 Sports Illustrated article:

Goyo set up matches for his sons and their friends in the playground of PS. 124 in the Bronx. Like a carnival barker, he would persuade passersby to pay a quarter for the show: "You want to see these kids fight?" Wilfred recalls getting $1 a fight, his share of the gate. "Sometimes Wilfred would fight twice," Goyo says. The boy was five then.
In 1966 Goyo moved his family back to Puerto Rico. Says Kleo, "Dad said. 'There's too much crime [in New York]. You'll have a better chance in Puerto Rico.' " That year Wilfred, 7½ years old and weighing 62 pounds, had his first organized fight, a draw in the Puerto Rican Golden Gloves. "I never liked boxing very much then," he says. "I just boxed for my father."

 

Oops...meant to post this comment on the other thread.

 

Well the father should be arrested for child abuse as far as I'm concerned.