![]() It’s Friday afternoon, and Yvonne Benítez is getting her little brother ready for his monthly visit to the doctor at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Yvonne spends most of her time looking after her brother, who has dementia. Eventually, his condition would turn him into an infant in an old man’s body - speechless, confined to a wheelchair, dependent on an older sister and her husband to meet his every need. After that last match, he returned home to Puerto Rico, shuffling slowly, slurring his words, showing signs of dementia pugilistica. banned him from boxing, so he wandered the world looking for a fight: first in Argentina, finally in Canada, where he lost a decision to a no-name club fighter. After a 1986 bout in Baltimore, a doctor detected neurological damage and warned him to retire. But like so many fighters, he fought too long, pursuing dwindling purses that were still more generous than anything he could have earned without using his fists. Puerto Ricans paraded through the streets of San Juan in his honor. He won championships in three weight divisions.īenítez earned millions of dollars as a boxer - $1.2 million alone for fighting Leonard (at the time the biggest purse ever for a nonheavyweight) and even more for Durán and Hearns. Ten months after defeating Palomino, he lost the title to Leonard, but he beat Durán and went the distance against Hearns. To many boxing fans, though, Benítez was the fifth king. They were dominated by the Four Kings: Roberto Durán, Marvin Hagler, Thomas Hearns, and Sugar Ray Leonard. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, after the decline of Muhammad Ali, the welterweight and middleweight divisions were the most glamorous and competitive in boxing. ![]() Howard Cosell, calling the fight for ABC, would praise the victory as “a sterling boxing demonstration.” Benítez, he would say, was “quicker with his hands, quicker with his feet.” Three years later, in the same stadium, Benítez, who’d moved up in weight classes, would win another title, the welterweight championship, from Carlos Palomino. I dedicate it to my mother and especially to my father, who was the one who went through all the trouble for me.” Benítez retained his super welterweight title in 1982 against Roberto Durán, in one of his greatest victories. “I dedicate this fight to Puerto Rico, Colombia, and all the countries that saw this fight. “I feel happy, because since I was born, I have dedicated all of myself to boxing,” Benítez tells a TV broadcaster as his fans mill around the ring. At 17 years old, Benítez has just become the youngest world champion in boxing history - a record that will never be broken, now that 18 is the minimum age for a professional fighter. ![]() The theme to Chico and the Man, sung by Puerto Rico’s José Feliciano, blares in the stadium. His cornermen lift him high above the crowd and set a sparkling paper crown on his head. When the ring announcer declares him the winner in a split decision, Benítez raises his fists in triumph. For 15 rounds, Benítez displayed the footwork of a salsa dancer and evaded nearly every one of Cervantes’s jabs, showing a defensive acumen that will earn him the nickname El Radar. He’s wearing a robe with his name stitched on the back, awaiting the judges’ verdict in his junior welterweight title fight against reigning champion Antonio “Kid Pambele” Cervantes of Colombia. Wilfred Benítez stands in the middle of a crowded ring at Hiram Bithorn Stadium, one of his home island’s largest venues.
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