This day in boxing. A look back.

[TitoFan]

Carlos Ortiz was one of the great ones. His trilogy with Ismael Laguna was classic back in the day.

[Beanz]

August 18 1979

Matthew Saad Muhammad v John Conteh

[Beanz]

18 August 1984

Jung Koo Chang vs Katsuo Tokashiki

[Master]

Jung Koo Chang only lost to the best fighters Humberto Gonzales, Sot Chitlada and Kittikasem and that was near the end of his career.

These smaller fighters have a short career because the competition is smaller, better and much tougher.

[TitoFan]

Jung Koo Chang only lost to the best fighters Humberto Gonzales, Sot Chitlada and Kittikasem and that was near the end of his career.

These smaller fighters have a short career because the competition is smaller, better and much tougher.

..... and quickness is one of the first things to go.

[Memphis]

21 August 1999

Kostya Tszyu becomes WBC light Welterweight champion beating Miguel Gonzales.

[Master]

On This Day: The great wonder kid Wilfred Benitez was born in 1958



LIKE Stuart Sutcliffe, a founder member of The Beatles, Wilfred Benitez will always be the fifth member of a Fantastic Four. And like Sutcliffe, who died at just 22 years old, Benitez’s journey roared into the air only to plummet like a stalled plane. Today, the hands that made him one of the finest ring generals of all time can barely be clenched. The brain behind the magic has been ravaged by his trade.

The reason Benitez, born on September 12 1958, is generally denied entry into the Leonard-Hagler-Hearns-Duran club is because he never shared a ring with “Marvellous” Marvin, thus making his membership incomplete.

But the application, that includes beating Duran, pushing Leonard to the brink, and being outpointed by Hearns, should never be discarded. Wilfred Benitez was an elegant artist of the ring, using each inch of the canvas to create fistic masterpieces. He claimed three world titles in different divisions, winning the first aged just 17.

But Benitez can’t remember his achievements. He doesn’t know he is now 55 years old. He can’t remember being interviewed by Boxing News in 1981 five years after claiming his first world title with a stunning victory over Antonio Cervantes.

“I don’t know,” Benitez said back then when our West Coast correspondent Steve Vender asked how long he would fight for. “Maybe I’ll fight until I’m 40. But I want to make millions before I retire, hundreds of millions.”

He nearly didn’t survive to be 40, much less fight until that young age. Wilfred, damaged by the onset of pugilistic dementia, was 38 when he collapsed on his mother’s living room floor and slipped into a coma.

Lying stricken when doctors arrived, his family were told to prepare for the worst. Six years after his final bout, Benitez was in physical and mental dire straits. He survived the coma but his demise continues. He fought on for years past his peak, broke and desperate. The millions he earned had long gone; regaining them proved an enduring but impossible target.

But Vender witnessed a very different version of the Puerto Rican legend.

“One simply doesn’t watch Benitez when he moves; you study him,” wrote Vender 15 years before Wilfred collapsed. “Whether he is under pressure from one of his sparring partners in the ring, or simply sauntering sauntering down the hallway on the way back to his room. Benitez is a man whose movement is so full of subtleties that to gain any hint of his mood or feelings you must study him like you would a clever and capable animal.”

To study Benitez today would be a depressing experience. He struggles to recognise his family, his carers. He cannot control his bodily functions. The sport that made him a king has stripped him of his soul.



The passion for pugilism came from their father Gregorio Snr. “I married Clara Rosa [Wilfred’s mother] in 1947,” Gregorio explained in 1981. “We had girls first, then the boys. I told Clara Rosa when we had a son he was going to be a fighter.”

All four of Gregario’s sons fulfilled their father’s wishes. His three elder brothers – Gregorio Jnr, Frankie, and Alphonso – all grew into professionals, but it was young Wilfred, who began fighting at the age of eight, who exhibited the most promise.

He turned pro at the age of 15 and within two years he was world champion.

“I had no doubt in my mind that I would beat him,” Benitez said of his coming-of-age party when he halted Cervantes. “I was in great shape and had no problem at all. I was ready to become a champion.”

But, like any teenager, Benitez soon found the distractions outside the ring an alluring playground of money, parties and beautiful women.

“Wilfred loves the girls,” a source told Vender. “He loves to be surrounded by women and the attention they give him. When a woman comes into the gym to watch him train, he works twice as hard. If he is doing push-ups, then he does 10, 20 more if a woman is watching.”

His fondness for the opposite sex was something that Vender himself noticed during his time with Benitez.

“When it was a woman who was interested in him,” he wrote, “Benitez’s face would light up and glow, and the aristocratic aloofness about him would disappear as he spoke in soft tones and smiled warmly, all the time looking at the woman. It was obvious that this was the part of being a champion that Benitez enjoyed very much.”

Training was a part that Wilfred didn’t care for nearly as much. He was happy for his natural gifts to be unwrapped in a fight, but only sporadically would they be revealed in training.

Even against WBC welterweight champion, the legendary Carlos Palomino in 1979, Benitez went into their January 1979 ill-prepared.