Professional Career
Bennie fought Middleweight champions Marvin Hagler, Vito Antuofermo, Rodrigo Valdez, Emile Griffith and Carlos Monzón. He also fought and defeated future light-heavyweight champion Eddie Mustafa Muhammad, Tom Bethea, Carlos Marks, Rafael Gutierrez, Charley Scott, Billy "Dynamite" Douglas, George Benton, Vicente Rondon, Jose Gonzales (twice), Art Hernandez, Tony Mundine, Stanley "Kitten" Hayward, Juarez DeLima, Eugene "Cyclone" Hart and Tony Chiaverini. Briscoe also dropped two decisions to former welterweight champion Luis Rodriguez.
Bennie was known for his toughness, strong punch and body punching. He fought future middleweight champion Monzon to a draw in Buenos Aires on May 6, 1967, but dropped a 15 round decision to the champion in a 1972 title match. Briscoe was outpointed by former welterweight and middleweight king Emile Griffith in their first match, but fought Griffith to a draw in a rematch. He was outpointed by future middleweight champions Marvin Hagler and Vito Antuofermo.
Bennie also fought Rodrigo Valdez three times. He was outpointed twice, but Valdez scored a rare KO over Briscoe in an elimination match to determine the WBC middleweight champion on May 25, 1974 - it was the only time in 96 fights that Briscoe was ever stopped. The WBC had decided to "strip" Monzon of its version of the middleweight crown, although the rest of the world continued to recognize Monzon as champion.
Briscoe was one of the most feared middleweights of his era. In 2003, he was named to the The Ring's list of 100 greatest punchers of all time. His final record was 66-24-5 with 53 knockouts and one No Contest.
Briscoe fought with the Star of David on his boxing trunks in tribute to his managers, first Jimmy Iselin, whose father Phil owned the New York Jets, and Arnold Weiss.
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