Why Wilfred Benitez is not in the fab 4?

[The Old LefHook]

Back in the day whenever you saw a boxer with no ears being interviewed you knew he had been in with Benitez.

[ag512bbi]

I was never a big fan of Benitez. His fight with Leonard was nice. The fight with Hearns, I felt was BORING! Thank god he wasn't in the Fab 4/5. The other 4 belong.

[sugar ray lenrd]

Perhaps it's because Benitez eventually got burnt out & doing drugs did help matters either. Let's take into account that he became WORLD Jr welterwgt champion at the age of 17...I'll type it again at the age of 17. So that would mean that he was fighting as a pro perhaps at the age of 15. he most likely started boxing at the age of 7. t that rate he most likely did not have a childhood. For certain this is why he burntout sooner than the other mentioned fighters. But as posted earlier he did fight Sugar Ray Leonard in an exciting 15 rd fight, tko lost. He went 15 rnds w/ the treacherous killer Tommy Hearns (who ko Duran in 1 rnd), whup the Duran in a 15 rnd dec. He was knocked out against Hamsho, but it seemed that he had a siezure as he was laying on the canvas...very sad site.

-SUGAR RAY LENRD

[New England]

leonard, duran, and hagler were big time stars in the states.

duran off of his leonard W, and the others off of their victories and runs domestically and against each other.


he also had a much more calculated and counterpunching style. everybody in the fab 4 was a complete fighter. benitez was really the only guy who was primarily a boxer. leonard would be the closest, but leonard had knockout power, and could come forward and was a great finisher when he needed to be [hearns 1.]

[Scott9945]

[QUOTE=New England;16313515]leonard, duran, and hagler were big time stars in the states.

duran off of his leonard W, and the others off of their victories and runs domestically and against each other./QUOTE]

True. Leonard, Duran, and Hagler were on free US TV much more than Benitez ever was. I don't remember ever seeing him fight before the Leonard match. But he was an east coast fighter so he could have been on regional TV there.

[Panamaniac]

I mean, he has defeated Duran and lost a MD against Hearns and had a good fight against Leonard.

He's even one of the best puertorican fighter of all time.

Why isn't he remembered as the others?

Simple. Benitez is not in the Fab 4 because he couldn't replace John, Paul, George or Ringo...

But seriously, who would you replace with Benitez? If you check any boxing historian's ranking of ATG's, you'll find Duran, Leonard, Hagler and Hearns way ahead of Benitez (with all due respect to Puertorican fighters).