The Boxing History Blog

03rd December 1982, Superdome, New Orleans WBC Light-middleweight Title Wilfred Benitez Vs Thomas Hearns Thomas Hearns and Wilfred Benitez were due to face each other at New York's Madison Square Garden for the formers WBA welterweight title on 23rd February 1981. The card was billed as 'This is it' and would feature Gerry Cooney against Ken Norton, WBC light-heavyweight champion Matthew Saad Muhammad taking on WBA counterpart Eddie Mustafa Muhammad and WBC super-bantamweight champion facing Mike Ayala. However, the show never happened when promoter Harold Smith, who was the chairman of Muhammad Ali Professional Sports (MAPS), disappeared amid allegations that he was involved in a $21.3 million fraud against Wells Fargo National Bank. Before Benitez outpointed Roberto Duran last time out he claimed he would move up to middleweight. However, the $1.5 million dollars promised by promoter Don King was too much to resist. The promoters had h...

30th January 1982, Caesars Palace, Las Vegas WBC Light-Middleweight Title Wilfred Benitez Vs Roberto Duran Wilfred Benitez returned to the ring in March 1980 after suffering his first defeat to 'Sugar' Ray Leonard. His opponent was Brooklyn light-middleweight Johnny Turner, who boasted a solid record of 34-3-1 and twenty-six knockouts, one more than Benitez.  Remarkably the former two-weight world champion was still only twenty-one-years-old and he went on to score a ninth round technical knockout over the New Yorker, who played French boxer Laurent Dauthuille opposite Robert DeNiro in 1980's Raging Bull. He continued 1980 with an eighth round TKO over Tony Chiaverini in the August and finished the year by clearly outscoring Pete Ranzany over ten rounds. "Ranzany made me change my mind about a second round knockout. They told me he would be easy, but he gave me a hard fight," said Benitez. "He's a very difficult man to hit. He k...

Wilfred Benitez turned professional at the tender age of fifteen, knocking out Hiram Santiago in the first round in November 1973. Benitez, who was born in New York to Puerto Rican parentage, was a natural talent with wonderful skills. Coached by his ruthless father Gregorio, Benitez went on to win all twenty-five contests, with twenty stoppages, before challenging long serving WBA light-welterweight champion Antonio Cervantes on 06th March 1976. The defending champion from Colombia first took the title from Alfonso Frazer in October 1972 and was making defence number eleven against Benitez. Both men boxed on even terms for the first four rounds, but in round five the skills of the teenager surfaced and he took the next four rounds, mainly due to his jab and the ability of making his thirty-year-old opponent miss. Cervantes did manage to rally in round eleven, but he couldn't press the initiative as Benitez became the youngest world champion at the age of seventeen years, fi...