Wifred Benitez, when was he past his prime?

Expert consensus was that he'd found his niche at 154 when he schooled Duran and he was said to look strong and comfortable. It was also still thought that a further move up to 160 was going to be very very tough, tho some thought he was an outside chance of being the man to dethrone Hagler. Post Hearns he was pretty crappy. It's actually hard to pinpoint his prime and peak TBH.

 

I would say that he was still in his prime against Hearns, but that his poor work ethic really deterred whatever chance of winning that Benitez had. But watching the fight, though Benitez clearly lost, he was slipping some nice shots by mere inches at times. Benitez was one of those rare boxers that could actually slip body shots, and make it look easy in the process.

But it all went downhill from there. Hearns was Benitez's last great performance on an elite level. And it's no shame to get outboxed by arguably the greatest junior middleweight in history. One of my favorite moments in boxing history was the staredown between Hearns and Benitez prior to the fight. Two proud all-time great warriors standing face-to-face, unintimidated and confident that they'll win the bout.

 

thats my favorite staredown of all time...benitez always had such a cool, laid back stare down.

 

Because Wilfred never trained hard for any length of time after his victory over Cervantes at age 17....I don't think we really ever saw the prime Benetiz he could have been.

Benetiz beat Palamino, Hope & Duran and lost to Leonard and Herans over 4 years and was a WW and SuperWW Champ in that time period.

Palomino and Duran to me were his 2 best fights because his opponents just couldn't hit him.

 

peak performance against Duran

 

I only gave Cervantes 3 rounds against him.

Didn't have much luck with the defensive specialists did Antonio.

 

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He also didn't have much luck against offensive hurricanes.

 

That and his susprising one punch KO of Mo Hope. Coming from Benitez it was a shocking display of power and he seemed to know instantly Hope was done even when he hovered going down.

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Benetiz threw a perfect right hand punch, watch how he follows though with his shoulder.....had the lefty backing up, then smoked him.

 

My favorite staredown involved Benitez also, but it was the one with Ray Leonard. Leonard and Benitez were of somewhat equal height, but to get the upper hand in the staredown, Benitez tilted his head back slightly so that it would look down on Leonard. It was as clever a staredown as I've ever seen, and usually I don't pay any attention to staredowns and that juvenile, macho ****. There are good staredowns, however, like those involving Liston and Foreman-Norton, where Foreman may as well have been an outer space alien aiming a laser at Norton. Very intimidating, and it told you of the likely outcome of that bout. But my favorite was that head tilted back "looking down at you" creativity of Benitez that was my favorite.

 

That ko was very impressive to me. Benitez was so cocky, but I liked his brand of cocky. He was sure of that right the moment it landed.