By Ian S. Palmer
If you sit around any sports bar long enough, sooner or later you’re bound to get into a debate about the most unbreakable records in sports. Feats that are so hard to achieve they’ll probably never be broken. These include Wayne Gretzky’s 92 goals in an NHL season, Cy Young’s 512 wins in Major League baseball, and Wilt Chamberlain’s 100 points in an NBA game. The list goes on and on and some of them, perhaps in time, may eventually fall, but there’s one that may never be broken, and that belongs to one Wilfredo “El Radar” Benitez, who became a world boxing champion at the tender age of 17.
Benitez won the WBA junior welterweight title from the 30-year-old legend Antonio “Kid Pambele” Cervantes (90-12-3, 44kos) via a 15-round split decision on March 6, 1976. What’s almost as incredible as the win itself is the fact it was already Benitez’s 26th pro fight as he entered the ring with a 25-0 record. Cervantes had won 19 fights in a row and had been the champion for almost four years, winning the title a month after Benitez’s 14th birthday.
Born in the Bronx, New York, on Sept. 12, 1958, Benitez, along with his three older boxing brothers and four sisters, was taken out of New York by his parents Gregorio (deceased 1998) and Clara because of the ghetto environment and back to their native Puerto Rico. He started boxing when he was seven years old and turned pro two months after his 15th birthday when he knocked out Hiram Santiago in the first round in San Juan for $50. While he was known as a great defensive boxer, he also showed power as a youngster by racking up 20 KOs in those first 25 bouts, albeit against mediocre opposition. But what else could you really expect from a high school aged kid?
Benitez had a solid following in New York, Puerto Rico, and around the Caribbean, as he fought strictly in those surroundings. Even his bout against Cervantes was in Puerto Rico, where his slick boxing skills had quickly turned him into a national hero. In the Cervantes fight it was a case of the student being the teacher and it wouldn’t be the only time Benitez would accomplish this in his career as he possessed lightning speed, punching power, superb ring generalship, an animal-like defense and incredible maturity in the ring for a youngster.
After winning the title though, Benitez noticed a difference in the attitude of his countrymen, stating, “Before, when I was just a contender, they all admired me. Now I win a championship and they look at me as if I’m a freak.” Perhaps the world wasn’t really ready for such a young champion. In fact, many fans and experts had criticized Gregorio for matching his son against such an experienced boxer at his young age.
One of Benitez’s major problems though, was the maturity shown in the ring often went missing in action when he was outside of the squared circle. His mind didn’t seem to develop at the same rate as his body and he would pay for it down the road. His training regime, or lack of it, was already becoming legendary and promoters often joked about having to pay him training expenses as he preferred to spend his time in the discos of San Juan. It was a nightmare for his father, who was also his trainer/manager, and it seemed the two had a love-hate relationship and did more arguing than training. “To be honest,” Benitez once told fighter/writer Jose Torres in the early 1980s, “I haven’t trained more than two weeks for any fight since I beat Kid Pambele.” Whatever his routine was, it was hard for his father to change him.
Benitez defended his title twice in 1976 before the WBA stripped him of it for refusing to give Cervantes a rematch as the champion recovering from an auto accident. This seemed to unsettle him as his next fight ended in a draw with Harold Weston. He then went back to square one, with his next three opponents having a combined record of only 8-7-1. For one opponent, Roberto Gonzalez, it was his one and only pro fight.
Needless to say, Benitez made quick work of them all and then upped his opposition considerably by knocking out Ray Guerrero in the 15th round at Madison Square Garden. His next bout was against a solid young prospect in Bruce Curry, but it was Benitez’s sixth fight of 1977 and fatigue caught up with him. He was decked three times but still managed to eke out a split decision win.
A rematch with Curry was held five months later and although it was only a majority decision, Benitez had little trouble handling him. Two more wins followed in 1978 and less than a month after his last bout Benitez, was aiming to add the welterweight title to his resume in San Juan against champion Carlos Palomino, who had only lost once in 31 bouts.
This was one of Benitez’s masterpieces as he continually lured Palomino into the corners and counterpunched his way to a split decision victory. He had won his second title and had just turned 20 years old. This bout also earned Benitez a wider fan base as it was shown on national TV in America. For those boxing fans who had only heard of this child caught in a man’s body, they were finally able to judge his talents for themselves.
Benitez showed the nation all of his moves that afternoon as he would offer his bobbing head as a target, only to move it at the last possible moment with cat-like quickness and then counter with his own pinpoint combinations. He had perfected the art of boxing with his back to the ropes, especially in a corner, and it became his own personal battleground. He was cool and calculated and slipping punches became second nature to him, hence the nickname “Radar,” he was also known by the nickname “The Bible of Boxing.”
Opponents flailed away in frustration, unable to hit what they couldn’t see or catch. It seemed to be a new style of fighting to many fans and judges, as some of them thought he was a boxing genius while others didn’t like the counterattacking style, leading to many of Benitez’s decision wins being split amongst the judges. If there was any knock against Benitez, it could be that he fought only to his opponent’s skill level.
Just two months later, Benitez defended the belt with a unanimous decision in a rematch against Weston. All the while he was still avoiding training like it was the plague and it was rumored he had only trained 12 days for the first Weston fight, seven days for the first Curry bout, 10 days for the rematch and only 15 days for his title shot at Palomino. Was he a genius or a lunatic? Whatever he was, he was still unbeaten
