Benny Leonard
Benny Leonard (born Benjamin Leiner; April 7, 1896 – April 18, 1947) was an American professional boxer who held the world lightweight championship for eight years, from 1917 to 1925. Widely considered one of the all-time greats, he was ranked 8th on The Ring magazine's list of the "80 Best Fighters of the Last 80 Years" and placed 7th in ESPN's "50 Greatest Boxers of All-Time".[1] In 2005, the International Boxing Research Organization ranked Leonard as the #1 lightweight, and #8 best pound-for-pound fighter of all time.[2] Statistical website BoxRec rates Leonard as the 2nd best lightweight ever, while The Ring magazine founder Nat Fleischer placed him at #2. Boxing historian Bert Sugar placed him 6th in his Top 100 Fighters catalogue.[3][4][5][2]
Benny Leonard
April 18, 1947 (aged 51)
Ghetto Wizard
The Great Bennah
Benny the Great
5 ft 5 in (165 cm)
69 in (175 cm)
219
185
70
22
9
3
Early life[edit]
Benjamin Leiner was born and raised as a youth in the Jewish ghetto, located in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City, near Eighth Street and Second Avenue, where he learned to fight the sons of other immigrants. His religious Jewish parents Minny and Gershon Leiner, who immigrated from Russia, disapproved of his fighting but understood his frequent need to defend himself in the poor neighborhoods in which he grew up.[6] His father struggled to support a wife and eight children by working twelve-hour days in a garment sweatshop at twenty dollars a week. His annual take-home pay rarely eclipsed $1400.[4][7] For context, in 1910, black cooks made an average of 60 dollars per year while engineers made an average of 1,050 dollars per year.[8]
Leiner began his professional career in 1911 at age 15. He took the Americanized name Benny Leonard to prevent his parents from discovering he had taken up professional boxing to earn extra money for them and himself.[4]
Final bout, loss to Jimmy McLarnin[edit]
Leonard found his payday on October 7, 1932, but it ended his career when he was knocked out after 6 rounds by future champion, Irish-Canadian boxer Jimmy McLarnin. Madison Garden was packed near capacity with 19,000 excited fans to see the fight. Only two minutes into the first round, Leonard connected with a right to McLarnin's chin, and his knees brushed the canvas for an instant. The huge crowd was in a frenzy. Clinching, and retreating, the younger and fitter McLarnin managed to recover from the blow, and by the end of the round had taken charge. McLarnin dropped Leonard in the second, and only his great defensive skills allowed him to stay in the contest through the next four rounds while he received continual punishment. In the sixth, Leonard was dazed by a series of punches from the exceptionally skilled McLarnin, and the referee mercifully halted the fight to save Leonard from further punishment. It was a humiliating defeat for many of Leonard's supporters, particularly his Jewish fans, but a loss to one of the greatest boxers of the century, a future triple weight class champion.[4] After the loss, the New York World Telegram wrote, "The real Leonard already is immortal, the artist of the ring canvas who glided up and back, the genius of punch slipping, the counter-puncher of lightning reflex snap, the lion-hearted campaigner, and the devoted believer of all that's good in boxing".[96]
The $15,000 Leonard received from the bout helped to ease his financial burden, and he married his secretary, Jacqueline Stern the following year. He was later married to Emogene Carlson.[4]
