Monzon-Benvenuti II

[Ambling Alp]

This was a very strange fight that you don't hear much about. (The 2nd and 3rd rounds are on Youtube.)

There several odd things that occurred:
-The bell rang early to start the 2nd round.
-At the end of the 2nd round, Monzon is credited with a knockdown. Benvenuti may have slipped. More obvious is that Monzon hit him in the back of the head; which of course was illegal.

-Then early in the 3rd round, Benvenuti went down again; it looked like he may have been pushed. In fact was was called a push by the referee.
-Then right after that, Benvenuti's corner inexplicably threw the towel in the ring. The referee (though he didn't have to) immediately stopped the fight.

Just wanted to know if anyone had any thoughts about what was going on? Also, why don't you hear more about this fight?

[raylawpc]

The whole fight is available here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Td80vtYajzM

I think Nino is lucky his corner threw in the towel when they did. Looked like Monzon was about to lay a very serious a** whipping on him.

[yancey]

I remember watching both Monzon-Benvenuti fights with Cosell on the call.

Agree that Nino was fixing to get a beating in that 2nd fight. How he protested the stoppage!

I think Nino wound up good friends with Monzon, just as he did with Griffith.

[raylawpc]

It's hard to imagine Monzon chummy with anyone. Only half-joking, but talk about a real bad a**!!

[yancey]

It's hard to imagine Monzon chummy with anyone. Only half-joking, but talk about a real bad a**!!

Yep, he was a pretty serious dude.

Anybody ever hear the story about the actor Mickey Rourke, who thought himself to be a bad a**, meeting Monzon and talking him into a little, friendly sparring session?

The result?

Rourke lights out out on the floor, one punch. Or so the story goes.

[raylawpc]

It's hard to imagine Monzon chummy with anyone. Only half-joking, but talk about a real bad a**!!

Yep, he was a pretty serious dude.

Anybody ever hear the story about the actor Mickey Rourke, who thought himself to be a bad a**, meeting Monzon and talking him into a little, friendly sparring session?

The result?

Rourke lights out out on the floor, one punch. Or so the story goes.

It's supposed to be a true story. It happened when Rourke visited Monzon in prison.

[Ambling Alp]

I remember watching both Monzon-Benvenuti fights with Cosell on the call.

Agree that Nino was fixing to get a beating in that 2nd fight. How he protested the stoppage!

I think Nino wound up good friends with Monzon, just as he did with Griffith.

I think Monzon would have won. However, Benvenuti's corner threw in the towel very prematurely. He didn't seem like he was in big trouble yet. I wonder if his corner thought he had been legitematley knocked down and didn't realize it was a push. Even then it seemed like they jumped the gun.

And why does nobody ever talk about Monzon punching him in the back of the head?

[yancey]

I remember watching both Monzon-Benvenuti fights with Cosell on the call.

Agree that Nino was fixing to get a beating in that 2nd fight. How he protested the stoppage!

I think Nino wound up good friends with Monzon, just as he did with Griffith.

I think Monzon would have won. However, Benvenuti's corner threw in the towel very prematurely. He didn't seem like he was in big trouble yet. I wonder if his corner thought he had been legitematley knocked down and didn't realize it was a push. Even then it seemed like they jumped the gun.

And why does nobody ever talk about Monzon punching him in the back of the head?

The fight was indeed stopped prematurely, but Monzon had clearly established himself as the stronger man and was fixing to really punish Nino, imo.

I guess Nino's corner saw the same thing coming.

[raylawpc]

I remember watching both Monzon-Benvenuti fights with Cosell on the call.

Agree that Nino was fixing to get a beating in that 2nd fight. How he protested the stoppage!

I think Nino wound up good friends with Monzon, just as he did with Griffith.

I think Monzon would have won. However, Benvenuti's corner threw in the towel very prematurely. He didn't seem like he was in big trouble yet. I wonder if his corner thought he had been legitematley knocked down and didn't realize it was a push. Even then it seemed like they jumped the gun.

And why does nobody ever talk about Monzon punching him in the back of the head?

The fight was indeed stopped prematurely, but Monzon had clearly established himself as the stronger man and was fixing to really punish Nino, imo.

I guess Nino's corner saw the same thing coming.

I can't say they stopped it prematurely. Watching it 40 years later on tape or live just a few feet away in the guy's corner are two entirely different things. I'm not going to criticize his corner. We don't know what they saw during that round, or, perhaps more importantly, what they saw between rounds in the corner before that round.

@Alp: Why don't people talk about Foreman hitting Frazier behind the head? Maybe because both were receiving an a**-whipping, and, therefore, it didn't seem to make much difference in the total scheme of things.

[Ambling Alp]

Well, maybe we should talk more about Frazier-Foreman in another thread; though I think that was a far different fight.

As for I Monzon-Benvenuti, I don't think this was a whipping at all. Benvenuti won the first round. Monzon won the 2nd, but it wasn't like he was knocking him from pillar to post. It was very early in the 3rd when it was stopped. Benvenuti was not in major trouble. My best guess is that his corner panicked. Would be interesting to hear their thoughts.

If every fight was stopped this prematurely, we would almost never have a great fight.

[raylawpc]

Well, again, I wasn't in his corner and I'm not going to criticize them for stopping it too soon. Would I have stopped it based on what I saw on the film? Probably not. But I wasn't there, and I wasn't in a position to see what they saw. Certainly, Nino didn't like it!!

I can't agree with your interpretation of the fight. In my mind, it's debatable whether Nino won the first round, but, certainly, Monzon took control of the fight about the middle of the second round, and after that he was landing hard punches with accuracy, while Nino was clearly in a survival mode. I thought both KDs were legitimate, and I was surprised when you said that the ref ruled the 2nd KD was a push. Did you read that somewhere? It looked like a KD to me.

[Ambling Alp]

I didn't think either knockdowns were legitimate. Monzon clearly hit him on the back of the head on the first one. That is illegal.

It looks to me that referee waved off the 2nd one as not a knockdown. I had thought it was a push form behind; I watched it again and it looks like Monzon hit him on the back of the head again! It was not a legitimate knockdown. I agree that Monzon was starting to control the fight. However, Benvenuti was not in serious trouble yet.

I think we have all seen many fights where a guys was hurt much worse than that and came back.