"Bad" Bennie Briscoe (b. August 2, 1943) was the prototypical Philadelphia fighter. Bad Bennie fought from 1962 to 1982, and retired with a career record of 66 wins (55 by KO0 24 losses and 5 draws. His record reads like a "who's who" list of prominent fighters from his era.
Bad 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.
Bad 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. 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.
Valdez had nineteen wins in a row when he met Philadelphia legend BennieBriscoe for the NABF middleweight title, in Noumea, New Caledonia, on September 1, 1973, beating Briscoe by a twelve round decision to capture the regional championship and allowing Valdez to become a world ranked Middleweight contender.
But Monzon did not feel like fighting the Colombian at that moment, so the WBC stripped Monzon of the world title (Monzon kept being world champion with the WBA) and made Valdez and Briscoe rematch, this time with the WBC world Middleweight title on the line.
Monzon announced his retirement from boxing afterwards, and so Valdez and Briscoe were matched once again, on November 5 of 1977, for the vacant undisputed world Middleweight championship, in Campione d' italia, which belonged back then not to Italy, but actually to Switzerland.
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