Ten extraordinary boxing accomplishments

[marbleheadmaui]

Wilfredo Benitez beating Cervantes for the lineal 140 crown at 17! He was still a boy and not yet a developed man yet. The youngest in history to achieve this feat. In fact I can only name 2 other guys in boxing history that became lineal champs at their division in their teen years. One is Canzoneri and the other Pacquiao. I'm pretty sure there may be 1 or 2 more but I'm not sure.

It's a pretty goddamned short list.
Benitez at 17
Pipino Cuevas at 18
Manny at 18
Tony Canzoneri at 19 (though he got a draw at 18 for the bantam crown IIRC)
Lionel Rose at 19
Ben Villaflor at 19

Those guys all won lineal/undisputed crowns

Hiroki Ioka at 18 won the first 105 title if you want to count him.

I think that's it. 135 years of boxing as we now know it and it's been done only 6-7 times.

Thanks for this list. I've been racking my brain and started a thread here a year or 2 ago to ask who were also lineal champs in their teen years. And I got Canzoneri was the only answer. It is indeed a very short list. It is extremely rare in boxing history to be the man of the division when your body hasn't fully mature yet!

I think it says something else too. When there were eight divisions only Canzoneri did it. The other guys only did it after the sport had been further chopped up into junior/super divisions. Canzoneri in what 1927-28? And then it didn't happen again until the very late 1960's with Rose. Then over only a decade we had Rose, Villaflor, Benitez and Cuevas? That demonstrates something else was going on as well. Of course since the late 1970's just Manny and Hiroka...so maybe my thesis is only half cooked. Hmmmmm.