Benny Leonard or Benjamin Leiner was an American Boxer in the Lightweight division. He was born in New York, United States on April 17th of 1896. Being born and raised in the lower east side of Manhattan in New York, Leonard learned fighting within the Jewish Ghetto. Leonard was nicknamed by the crowd as Ghetto Wizard and The Great. He was ranked by the Ring Magazine as Number 8 of the “Top 80 Best Fighters of the Last 80 years” and was ranked as “ESPN’s 50 Greatest Boxers of All-Time” rank 7. Leonard was also featured in the Top Ten Best Boxers of All-Time.
The Ghetto Wizard was compared to Muhammad Ali who was the boxing Champ at that time. During their generation, it was baseball and boxing that was considered as the most popular sport in the United States of America. And being part of those sports was greatly considered as an honour since people joining it should have the talent and skills.
During his prime, he was known greatly for his speed and superior technique and reflexes in boxing. Leonard was known also by many to have a powerful punch and has earned 70 knockouts from his 183 wins. He only lost 19 fights and had a draw in 11 of his matches. It was usual during his time that there were several no-decision matches and thus he was involved in those matches to which was believed to have reached about 213 fights.
Other than fighting as a Lightweight Champ, Benny Leonard also challenged the Welterweight Champion Jack Britton for the title in June 26th of 1922. However, Leonard lost his fight to Britton due to disqualification of hitting Britton when Britton was already down on the thirteenth round.
Leonard won his fights from great champions such as Johnny Dundee who was the Featherweight champion of 1922, 1923, 1924 and Junior Lightweight champion of 1921 up to 1924. He also defeated Freddie Welsh who was the Lightweight champion of 1914 to 1916, Rocky Kansas who was the Lightweight champion of 1925 to 1926, Willie Ritchie who was the Lightweight champion of 1912 to 1914, and Johnny Kilbane who was the Featherweight champion of 1912 to 1923. Other great boxers Leonard fought include Pasty Cline, Joe Welling, Ritchie Mitchell, Lew Tendler, and Charley White.
He beat all the best fighters in the lightweight division during his time and has defended his title ever since 1917. He had retired at 1925 still holding his title as the Lightweight champion.
In 1931, Leonard returned to the boxing career when the stock market crashed. He won straight all of his 18 fights and had 1 draw. Leonard finally retired when he lost his fight with Jimmy Mclarnin.
He had since then, after his retirement, became a popular referee up until he had a heart attack in the ring from which he died at 51 years old a day after his birthday.
Benny Leonard has a boxing record of 85 – 5 – 1 with 69 knockouts and 121 no – decisions.
