Sting #4

A bit more on my previous comments re: Benny "The Jet" Urquidez; I watched Benny fight in a few sport karate matches in the early seventies, and I saw him fighting in four full-cantact matches. He was a straightahead, no nonsense, fighter who was entertaining to watch in the sport karate matches, but his full-contact matches were not that interesting (in my opinion) because A) The competitors I saw him matched with were karate or kung fu black belts who had converted to kickboxing without having any boxing or other "ring" arts experience...which made them essentially "stiffs" in the ring against Benny, who had many years of training and sparring experience in local L.A. boxing gyms with top amateurs, pros, and under the eye of wise old boxing trainers...a tremendous edge, and B) The sport karate matches allowed him to just go all out with his visually appealing combination of speed, athleticism, and point karate bag of tricks (kick and punch combinations done with great flair).

I was a fan of Muay Thai and western boxing many, many years before I saw Benny in the full contact ring, so what he was doing was not all that impressive in my eyes. I always wanted to see him get in the ring with a Thai boxer (of equal size) to see how he would cope with what the Thai would "bring to the table." However, I realized that the only way he could hope to beat a Thai in a elbows and knees, or knees, allowed match would be if Benny spent at least a year or so in a Muay Thai camp in Thailand under the watchful eye of a good Muay Thai Kru (teacher). That was not going to happen. And there was no way that Benny would be able to cut it in the professional boxing ranks because that too would have required some heavy duty specialization and standing at the rear of a long line of really tough fighters, many of whom could clock Benny rather handily in a western style boxing match. And I was told by a couple of boxing gym rats at a downtown L.A. boxing gym that Benny did not have a "good chin" by boxing standards.

The legendary Karate and Kickboxing star, Joe Lewis, was on top of the world in the sport karate ring and the early full contact karate ring, but, when he took on a journeyman boxer in Hawaii named Teddy Limoz, he got beat up quite handily by Teddy. There are a lot of tough guy boxers like Teddy Limoz. If you want to get to the top ten rankings in pro boxing you have to meet and defeat at least a few Teddy Limoz types. Lewis found out the hard way in a full contact match. Benny found out while training in the gyms with tough latino and american journeymen pro boxers without suffering the public ignominy that Lewis did in his match with Limoz.

This reminds me of how a handful of really good USKA Black Belts who had done well in local (Chicago), midwest, and national sport (light contact) competitions during the seventies threw their belts in the ring and summarily got their butts and belts handed to them by full contact fighters who had the good sense to spend a lot of time training in conventional boxing. They were good sport karate competitors, but when it came to really banging it out with gloves on, they were far behind those who actually "cross-trained." It also brought to mind the question as to how those black belts (who shall remain unnamed) would have done in an alley against a tough street thug.

Ah, but I digress. Benny Urquidez was indeed a very interesting to watch sport karate competitor. As a kickboxer he simply had too much size, firepower, stamina, and an ability to absorb punishment (from hastily converted sport karate competitors)to lose to most of the martial arts stiffs that he ran his record up with. He was smart enough not to actually get in the ring with a tough Thai fighter, or with a Teddy Limoz type, either of whom would have handed Benny's head to him on a platter.

I know there are those who drink a lot of Benny Urquidez "kool-aid" and worship him as if he were some sort of martial arts deity. Thats cool. To each his own. Still the truth is out there for any intellligent researcher to glean from videos and written reviews of Benny's career. Good fighter, great (if disputable) ring record, but despite his (or his publicists) claim that he would fight any martial artist, anywhere, anytime, he avoided Muay Thai boxers like the plague ( and the two times he did get in the ring against Thai fighters-read the link supplied in Sting #3-it was under no elbows, no clinches, no knees kickboxing rules, or the Thai had to wear an abundance of foot, shin, and overpadded gloves "safety???" equipment before Benny would enter the ring. And, I might add that there was always the claim that any match against a Thai would be considered an "exhibition" just in case Benny got his clock cleaned. In short, any Thai facing Benny would have to play against a stacked deck. Two Thais did, they still beat the odds, but to this day Benny denies the validity of the outcome of those matches. In fact, one might say that according to the Urquidez camp, and those with vested interests in the history and lore of American kickboxing and it's champions, Benny never actually fought Thais at all.

What else need be said! His legacy, at least in America is ironclad and bulletproof amongst his fans. Those of us who know better respect his legacy only up to a point, and that point is defined by his never having given it a go in a ring with a Thai champion under either full-Thai or modified-Thai rules. Ah, but the immortal Bruce Lee never chose to touch gloves with a Muay Thai fighter either...so Benny is in good company, eh?

*You might wonder how I think Benny would have fared in a match with a Thai fighter under full or modified Thai rules? I would say Benny would have suffered worse results than his cousin Blinky Rodriguez did when he fought the renowned Dutch Muay Thai and International Kickboxing Champion Rob Kaman...but you would have to multiply the damage that the Thai champion would put on Benny by at least twice the amount Kaman laid on Blinky. Just my opinion.

H.A. 09/18/06