I been watching Benitez Duran and Cervantes fights today. This man was brilliant,he was always my stepfathers favorite fighter and now I see why, I always knew he was a great but when you really observe him man what a talent. Sucks to see how he's living now but anyway.... Where do you rank Wilfred in the following categories? -Your top 100? -Placing in PR's deep atg great list?(I think it's insane Trinidad gets ranked ahead by some.) -Alltime Welterweight ?
Benitez in his prime was something to behold. He also won three world titles at a time titles were fewer and it meant something because of the quality of fighters. He beat 1 all-time great (cervantes) and two very good fighters (palomino and hope) to win those titles. However, because his prime was so short and because he didn't have any lengthy title reigns, his standing as an all-time great suffers even though he does classify as being one. My ranking of him is as follows: Top 70 all time p4p Top 5 on puerto rican list Top 10 all- time welter list Had he beaten leonard or hearns he would have ranked higher overall
i havent really done a P4P list so dont know where i would rank him but he would definitly be in the top 80 top 5 PRs Top 15 or 20 at welter but he was some fighter his defesive mastery is brillaint. He was a radar he saw punches taht nobody else saw coming and used his head movement to get out of the way absouolty brillaint. But when he needed to attack he became a Dragon
80-100 OAT Resume just doesn't match his talent. I don't think he balanced offence and defence well enough to be a truly great fighter. A truly great defensive fighter, but not an all-round great fighter.
Benitez was a master technician, if a tad conservative offensively. It's truly amazing to think that the kid who put on a technical masterclass against a fighter of Cervantes's caliber was only 17 years old.
Hard to judge, he has a wonderful skill set, but a little lazy offensively. In terms of achievement hes missing a great win or great reign. Cervantes was a very good win, as was Palomino, Duran was a good win but Duran was faded and also losing to Laing around this time, Curry was a good win, most of those were close fights though. As a wins resume its not that strong. His performances against Leonard/Hearns were good losing efforts. He may have been past it or even shot but all those gatekeepet type losses at the end of his career look bad Another question is all those SD wins, how close were they? Were they questionable decisions Hard 1 to judge in head to heads he'd probably scalp some great champs 140-147 but there are many question marks
I agree with the majority of what's been said in this thread. My favorite version of Benitez is against Duran and Hope where he had physically matured and was very strong and more offensive minded in these fights. I wish we'd have seen a little more of that style. Leonard - Benitez remains the best technical fight I've seen.
I think Tito gets rated over Wilfred because he was more recent, but in 20 years Wilfred will be rated over him. Wilfred Benitez below middleweight was hard to beat. Not many people realize this but when Hearns fought Benitez he only had one loss, and that was to Sugar Ray Leonard 3 years before. At 154 some boxing experts thought was his best weight. He beat Duran easily and knocked out Hope with one punch. Hearns could not hit him even with some body shots. It was amazing. I think Wilfred was better than Tito. Top 100 ATG? I think he would be ranked about 50-60. Benitez had no losses at 140, one loss at 147 with Leonard and then one loss at 154 with Hearns. The rest came at the middleweight rank where he just did not belong in size. Below middleweight he was great.
his partying life style cut his career short after an early start but he was a brilliant boxer...his match with leonard was a chess match but he could not match Leonard's power...still his fights over Cervantes, Duran,Hearns, Hope,etc. showed he was a master boxer and talented fighter..
Benitez called himself the bible of boxing and was a technical genius in the ring. He had alot of hard fights as a kid. He could have easily become one of the top 20 P4P, ATG Had he trained and taken care of himself. Still i would rate him in the top 100.
He probably trained and took care of himself more than he's being given credit for (even though he had his out of ring issues), he was simply much more ring-worn than most fighters his age because of the very young age he started at and the ring wear he'd already accumulated. He was having ring wars with top fighters like Esteban Dejesus from age 13, was ranked in the top 10 by age 15, and was schooling great fighters by age 17. When taken into context, the fact that he started to fade at around 24 when above his best weight isn't that big a surprise.
During his very short prime he must be rated as a defensive genius, a wizard, with conservative, but underrated power.