Why did Benitez and SRL age so quickly?

Benitez was having gym wars with Esteban De Jesus from the age of 13, was ranked by 15 and champion by 17. Being brought up from that young an age and peaking so young doesn't often bode well for fighters having long careers, or effective careers past a certain point. Holds true for a lot of fighters.

Leonard went on a 3 year hiatus in the middle of his prime and was never able to re-gain peak form at the higher weights. I think it had more to do with the direction his career took than aging quickly. And I don't think Roy was really better at age 35 than Ray either.

 

Benitez peaked very young , abused his body and never trained hard ....

Leonard was highly inactive and I'm sure it took it's toll ..

Hopkins is an extreme exception however he has been active and takes terrific care of himself ...

 

Benitez peaked young. However, from 1976 until 1982 he was widely regarded as among the best fighters in the sport. Thats six years, on and off, of being a world champion at three weights. Impressive indeed.

I think going up in weight hurt Leonard slightly. He wasn't really a natural middleweight when he fought Hagler. And everything after that was around the same weight or higher. His career obviously would have panned out totally different though. In-activeness and age caught up with him during the late 80's. And going back down to 154lbs at 34 against Norris really was a bad move in hindsight.

 

A similarity both had that no one's mentioned yet is drugs.

Leonard, like a lot of celebrities in the 80, used coke. As in it was an addiction. He's admitted this to himself.

Bentiez was a known partier and I don't exactly what he did, but drugs and drinking will age you more prematurely then just about anything, as if being punched in the face as a profession didn't do it fast enough.

 

I'd totally ignore what Hopkins does compared to 99.999999999% of fighters. He and Moore are the very rare exceptions, not the rule.

 

Hopkins isn't just a rare exception regarding fighting at such a high level and pulling off fantastic wins. It's how youthful and speedy he looks while doing it which impresses me the most. He looks as close to his prime as you can possibly get for a fighter over 40.

I called for his workrate to be steady prior to facing Pavlik, and he came up trumps. He wasn't consistently fast with hands all the way through the fight, but the combos he threw in the 2nd and 12th rounds were as quick as his hands have ever looked.

 

what makespeople think Leonard aged quickly? he looked better than people expected him to be in the Hagler fight. And by age 33 going on 34 danced all thru 12 rounds in Uno mas. Somebody tell me what was wrong with that performance.

as for Benitez, he just got beat by better fighters Leonard, Hearns, Hamsho, Moore and used up by the Hilton fight but by then was probably around 28.

 

Hamsho and Moore wereno where near as good as a prime Bentiez ... but they were naturally bigger .

 

nowhere near as good you mean skilled. Hamsho was nowhere near as skilled as a lot of people he beat but so relentless you couldnt keep him off you. That was Wilfred's problem. As for Hamsho, he had a who's who list of victims

 

Did he?

Ill have to actually check his record but I only recall Minter and Czyz being some name fighters he defeated..other then Bentitez of course.

And I think he did beat that bloke who defeated Marvin earlier in his career...but I wouldnt consider him a name fighter putting the fight into context...for one I cant remember his name ..Watson or something.

 

You wernet far off - Bobby Watts was his name. Watts was top notch. He beat Monroe before monroe beat Hagler and Hamsho beat him. Hamsho had to beat a few people himself on the way up and beat many top contenders including Minter and was the first man to beat Parker and Scypion. That's the reason he twice became number one contender on two differnt occasions. If the title were split he'd have been champion.

He also beat the heavily Benitez easily. Wilfred reminded me of Czyz too afraid to fight back.

 

not so clean living outside the ring and long amatuer career but the heavy use of drugs and woman

 

Thats what brought down Camacho