Benny The Jet Urquidez Greatest Fights

Nineteen eighty-five has not been a good year for jets, which have accounted for more deaths than in any other year in aviation history.

There is on e Jet, however, that is still mechanically sound, still flying high, and still soaring after more than ten years of professional operation. And Benny “ The Jet” Urquidez isn’t about to come down. He’s having to much fun, even at age 33, when most full-contact fighters have already hung up their gloves, their battered faces candidates for the plastic surgeon.

“I’m like wine,” the relatively unmarked Urquidez says. “The older I get, the better I get.”

One of Urquidez’ most memorable fights took place in 1977 at the Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles, where he met Thailand’s Narong Noi. The bout was declared “no contest” after a riot erupted in the ninth round. Said Benny at the time: “This is D-Day. This is country against country.”

This Jet hasn’t accounted for any deaths during a professional ring career that began in 1974, just a lot of bumps, bruises and bloody noses. And perhaps a broken jaw or two. But that’s to be expected when one steps in the ring with the World Karate Association (WKA) super-lightweight champion from Tarzana, California.

Urquidez, who was scheduled to fight number-one contender Tom LaRoche for the WKA welterweight title in October in Los Angeles, has, according to the Standardized Tournaments and Ratings System (STAR), compiled a record of 56-1-1 during his pro career. The Jet, however, vehemently maintains that he has never lost a fight. “To this day, I say I haven’t lost nothing,” the five-foot-six, 151-pound Urquidez asserts.

His one so-called defeat came on August 9,1980, in West Palm Beach, Florida. The opponent was the now-retired Billye Jackson. The outcome is still debated to this day.

Urquidez had originally agreed to fight what he thought was a five-round exhibition against Glen Mehiman. But Mehiman backed out at the last minute, claiming an injury, and the littleknown Jackson replaced him.

“It was a set-up,” said Paul Maslak, head of the STAR system and a ringside viewer that night. “At the last minute, they had Glen fake an injury, then they stuck Billye in there. Nobody really knew who he was, but he was a very good fighter.”

“I didn’t care (who I fought),” says Urquidez in his typical devil-may-care fashion. “It was an exhibition. There were no weigh-ins, no doctor, nothing.”

Urquidez’ best-known fight in America was against Howard Jackson in Las Vegas in 1977. For three rounds, The Jet was on the receiving end of Jackson’s blows, then he put Jackson away in the fourth with a sharp left hook.

According to WKA President Howard Hanson, Urquidez knew it was an official, sanctioned bout. “I don’t know where the term ‘exhibition’ came from,” Hanson says. “That surfaced afterward.

“They wanted to have (the loss) removed from his record, but I wouldn’t do it,” Hanson adds. “There was no grounds for it. If you take a fight, you take a fight, and that’s it. Benny had a choice of either fighting, or backing away from it once they made the change.”

Another last-minute change was a decision on the part of the promoter, Richard Stacey, to disallow leg kicks, one of Urquidez’ strengths. Jackson wouldn’t fight unless leg kicks were ruled out, Stacey said.

Urquidez, who says he’ll fight by any rules or no rules at all, agreed to the rule change as well as the new opponent. “The smart thing would’ve been for Benny to pick up and walk,” Hanson notes. “The promoter would’ve been beaten to death on the spot.”

More surprises awaited The Jet once he stepped into the ring, where, he claims, the referee informed him that sweeps, throws and thigh kicks would also be disallowed. Moreover, Urquidez discovered that Jackson was equipped with Casanova gloves (“notoriously good knockout gloves,” according to Maslak), while Benny was using the lighter Reyes gloves, which are not considered as powerful. “If Benny had had the same gloves, he would’ve torn the kid’s head off,” Hanson claims.

But The Jet, whose money was already guaranteed, still didn’t back out. “I just shined it on,” he says. “It was an exhibition.”

Or so he thought. Once the opening bell rang, Jackson, who weighed nearly ten pounds more than Benny, came at Urquidez “like a bat out of hell. This guy was like a madman,” Benny recalls. “I told (my brother and trainer) Arnold, ‘For an exhibition, this is a little weird.’ ”

Several years ago, Jackson and Urquidez got together at BLACK BELT’s offices (right) and discussed the possibility of a rematch. Money was the major hang-up: They both wanted more than promoters were willing to offer.

“The first three rounds probably were won 10-9 by Billye Jackson, not that he did anything spectacular,” Hanson says. “Jackson would bang on him a little bit, and Benny would smile at him. The fourth and fifth rounds were a draw. Then, once Benny figured out what he could do without the leg kicks, he went after the guy and beat the crap out of him. If it had been a nine-round fight, he would’ve knocked him out.”

Urquidez, however, initially thought it was a five-round exhibition. After the fifth round, he claims, it was announc- ed the bout would go six rounds. After the sixth, they added a seventh round, according to Urquidez. “We were already cutting my gloves off (after the sixth round),” he says. But the gloves were taped up, and Urquidez went out for one more rou-and not exactly in the best of moods. “I went after this guy,” Benny says. “This guy was in la la land somewhere. The bell saved him.”

“I still thought it was an exhibition. Then, afterward, they said ‘We’ve got a split decision here. ‘I said ‘What?’ Billye Jackson won because I fouled-I swept him. I lost by a point. I looked at him and I said ‘I don’t know who you are, but you’ve got a real fight coming now!’ ”

But it never came. Urquidez claims he tried for three years to get a rematch to avenge the seven-round decision, but Jackson “kept ignoring me. I even did a seminar in his own (town) and invited his students,” Urquidez says. “He was the only one who didn’t show up. That’s how bad I wanted him.”

There have been other opponents on Urquidez’ most-wanted list, though none who get his dander up quite like Billye Jackson. The draw on Urquidez’ record came more than four years earlier, on February 14,1976. Instead of a valentine, The Jet sent his opponent, Earnest Hart Jr., a cut lip, airmail, in the first round. The fight was stopped because of the bleeding, and the California State Athletic Commission declared it a technical draw. In an August rematch televised by CBS, Urquidez won a nine-round decision from Hart to earn the Professional Karate Association (PKA) lightweight title.

Urquidez’ first fight in Japan was against Katsayuki Suzuki (1-3) in August, 1977. Benny KOed him in the sixth round (bottom). Says The Jet: “It was spooky. He did not feel anything I did to him. Every time I got him down, they shook him by his hair and threw cold water on him. “

There have obviously been many more positive moments in The Jet’s career than negative. His first five pro victories came at the World Series of Martial Arts in December, 1974, a two-day affair held in Honolulu. “It was like a toughman contest,” he recalls, “with streetfighters, wrestlers, boxers, martial artists. There were no rules, and no weight divisions.”

The winner-take-all prize was $5,000. On the first day, Urquidez knocked out 32-year-old Marine Tom Mossman with a kick in the third round. Later that day, he KOed heavyweight Futi Semanu in the second. “After the first day, everybody was in slings and casts,” Urquidez says. “Only 15 showed up the next day.”

The Jet was one of them. He notched a third-round TKO over Bill Rosehill in his first fight on day two, then deci- sioned Burnis White in the semifinals. That set up a meeting in the finals with six-foot-one, 225-pound Hawaiian champ Dana Goodson, who had defeated Blinky Rodriguez, Benny’s brother-in-law, in the other semifinal.

“When I got in the ring, I was facing (Goodson’s) belly button,” Urquidez recalls. “He thought I was going to run from him because everybody else did. But I ran at him, and stuck to him like a leech sucking his blood. I was so close he couldn’t hit me. All I kept thinking was $5,000.”

In the third round, Urquidez pinned his larger opponent to earn a three-round decision and the five grand. “They call me the giant killer down there now,” he says proudly.

In 1975, Urquidez captured the now defunct National Karate League (NKL) lightweight title, and the PKA champi- onship followed in 1976. The years 1975 and ‘77 provided perhaps The Jet’s fondest moments in kickboxing.

In February of 1975, Urquidez fought an NKL bout against Butch Bell in Savannah, Georgia. Although The Jet was thrown to the mat in the early going, it was Bell whose head was ringing from a KO in the second round. “The reason Benny remembers him as one of his toughest opponents is because when Butch hit you, you knew you’d been hit,” the STAR’s Maslak says.

A fight with Puerto Rican champion Marcelino Torres followed in August in Puerto Rico. Recalls Urquidez: “I got in the ring and people were whistling and stomping their feet. I thought they liked me, but actually, they were booing me all the time. Then this guy came out with an entire entourage. He was their big hero. He started flexing his muscles and he looked real good, all carved and shiny. But I said ‘Hey, that’s not going to help him.’ The bell rang and he came at me. Bing-he went down. He got up and-left, right-Bing! He went down again. It’s my fastest knockout -30 seconds. And it got real quiet. People started throwing coins at me, and this guy’s father came out and challenged me. They had to hide me in the back dressing room until it calmed down. They didn’t like that at all-me knocking out their champion.”

Urquidez found himself in the midst of another riot a year and a half later at the Olympic Auditorium in Los Ange- les. The opponent this time was Thai boxer Narong Noi, and he brought a large contingent of his countrymen with him for this first-ever WKA-sanctioned bout. “People were shouting ‘Jet, Jet’ and ‘Thailand, Thailand.’ I said ‘This is D-Day. This is country against country,’” Urquidez notes. “He came out like a bat out of hell and he took everything I had. We were going at it.” Urquidez picked up the momentum as the fight progressed, and by the ninth round, it became apparent he was dominating the fight.” The (Thai) audience knew I was beating him, and they were betting big money-$500, $1,000 bets. They couldn’t believe an American was beating a Thai.”

And they couldn’t stand it, either. A riot broke out between the Thai partisans and the Urquidez fans.

“The reason the riot started is the Thai kept fouling Benny by using muay Thai techniques, and the referee kept taking points away from him,” Maslak says.

“The Thais were betting thousands of dollars, and when they saw their guy losing, they went ape,” notes Stuart Sobel, Urquidez’ manager.

The bout, stopped because of the melee, was officially ruled “no contest” by the state athletic commission and didn’t go down as one of Urquidez’ victories. But a month later, he registered perhaps his most well-known victory in America. The date was April 23, 1977. The opponent was Howard Jackson.

Urquidez’ most memorable fight in Japan was against Kunimatsu Okao, who came out of retirement in the hopes of stopping The Jet. Okao knocked Urquidez down in the second round-the first time Benny had been to the mat Urquidez recovered in round three, then battered Okao into submission in the fourth. After Okao was counted out, Benny performed his victory backflip. Says STAR ratings head Paul Maslak: When Benny turned mean. Okeo went down.

This Jackson nearly handed The Jet a legitimate defeat. Most experts at ringside that night gave Jackson the first three rounds handily. Cecil Peoples, a former world-ranked full-contact fighter who had trained with both Jackson and Urquidez, recalls the bout: “Man, Howard was on Benny so bad! I thought for sure Benny was goin’ down. Then the same thing happened in the second- all Howard. Third, still cleaning up on Benny. Then Howard made one mistake in the fourth and Benny made him pay.”

It cost Jackson the fight-and a goodly hunk of his pride. Following a quick hand combination, Jackson lost his balance for a split second. It was all the time Urquidez needed.

If Jackson saw the left hook coming, there was little he could do about it, and The Jet followed the telling blow with a series of punches that sent his opponent sprawling against the ropes, where he would not recover.

“Howard may have shot his wad trying to knock Benny out,” says Greg Wilkenson, a light-heavyweight who fought on the same card that day. “It looked like Howard didn’t just want to win a decision; he wanted to destroy Benny. He almost did. (But) when Benny landed that punch, Howard was in never-never land.”

Jackson is one of 47 Urquidez opponents to succumb to the knockout. Although he didn’t win the fight, he won The Jet’s respect.

“I give him all the credit in the world,” Urquidez says. “He’s an excellent fighter. I was just more experienced at the time. I respect any fighter who gets in the ring.”

Less than four months later, Urquidez was back in the ring, making his debut in Japan against Japanese lightweight champion Katsuyuki Suzuki. “It was spooky,” The Jet recalls. “There were 22,000 people at the Budokan. It started with this weird music. It was hypnotizing. I looked at my brothers and said ‘What the hell is going on?’”

“The first three rounds, this guy was unbelievable,” Benny continues. “He did not feel anything I did to him. In the fourth round, I got him down. Every time I got him down, they shook him by his hair and threw cold water on him. This guy took everything I could give. In the sixth, he went face down from a standing position. The referee was pleading with him to get up as he counted him out. They had to carry him out.”

The one-sided victory so shocked the Japanese that they later convinced themselves Urquidez was half Japanese, which of course, he’s not. How else could he have destroyed one of their top fighters?

“They’re a very honorable people,” Urquidez says. “They couldn’t fix it in their heads that an American could come over and beat them in their own sport and teach them something. They’re convinced that’s the way I beat them, because I’ve got Oriental blood in me.”

They weren’t convinced, however, that The Jet was unbeatable. After Urquidez KOed Suzuki, Kunimatsu Okao, Suzuki’s predecessor to the lightweight championship, came out of retirement to fight The Jet. The bout was held in November, 1977, and it was one of Urquidez’ toughest fights.

The Jet was knocked down by an overhand right in the second round- the first time he had been knocked down in his professional career. “I was shocked,” Urquidez says. “He had a cocky look like ‘You’re fighting against the best.’ It was a matter of honor.”

Urquidez recovered in the third round, then in the fourth, he unloaded on Okao. “Benny hit him nonstop from the opening bell,” says Maslak, who has seen a videotape of the bout. “Kick, punch, kick, punch-the guy was almost helpless. It’s the most amazing round I’ve ever seen. When Benny turned mean, Okao went down. That’s actually what made Benny a big star in Japan. It was like knocking out Muhammad Ali in this country.”

Indeed, Urquidez is highly revered in Japan. He even has his own comic book. And because he can earn higher purses, he does most of his fighting abroad now.

The fight Urquidez remembers most-that still sends shivers up his spine-doesn’t even show up on his record. It wasn’t a title bout; the stakes were higher than that. He was fighting for his life-literally.

It took place in November, 1980, while Urquidez was in Hong Kong to promote a movie he was making. He was being interviewed on a talk show when someone in the audience started yelling at him. Urquidez recalls the mo- ment: “The show’s host told me ‘He says you’re an actor and not a true fighter, and if you were a true fighter, you would fight him to the death. He’s challenged you to a fight to the death. Do you accept?’ I said, ‘For money, I’ll fight anybody.’”

“After the show, a promoter asked how much I wanted to fight this guy,” Benny adds. Urquidez, thinking he could call the man’s bluff, asked for $20,000 and a mink coat for his wife. The money and mink jacket arrived at his hotel the next morning, much to The Jet’s surprise. The fight was scheduled for the following day.

“I went to this place on the Hong Kong side,” Urquidez remembers, “a dark, funky-looking place. It was a lot like a damn cockfight. There was a square box in the middle, old wooden benches going up the sides, and smoke all the way around. All these Chinese were sitting in there talking whispering, and money was flying all over the place. I found out later the guy I was fighting was a Chinese champion.

“The bell went off and the guy shouted ‘To the Death!’ and raised his arms into the air. Man, I almost urinated right in my gi (uniform). And he came at me. He had a kickboxer style. I went crazy on him, kicked him in the jaw, and the cheek puffed up. We had to go until one guy couldn’t go no more. ‘To the death!’ he said before every round, raising his arms. Every time he said it, it was like a cold shower-my adrenaline started flowing. I went like a madman on this guy. I did everything-just drilling on his ribs. By the third round, he looked like the Elephant Man.

“In the fourth round, he went down and the people gave the thumbs down sign. They expected me to kill this guy. It was to the point where he was down and barely breathing, and blood everywhere, and they wanted me to kill him. They told me later they had to fuse his nose, jaw and cheekbone. So I did a backflip in the middle of the ring (an Ur- quidez trademark after a victory) and ran out. The security people locked me in the locker room for four hours be- cause they were rioting outside. I’ve had a lot of experience with a lot of different things, but this was one… I don’t like to talk about. It bothered me for the longest time.”

Urquidez’ last fight overseas took place in Holland against Iwan “The Tank” Sprang in 1984. Benny recorded a fifth-round TKO over the European muay Thai champ. Says Urquidez: “It was just a rock-em, sock-em-type fight The Tank ended up hitting mines-in the fifth round”

Another thing that bothers Urquidez is that he never got a chance to fight Bruce Lee. It’s probably the greatest fight that never was: The Dragon versus The Jet. Many martial arts experts have speculated about how such a bout would have turned out. Kali/ jeet kune do expert Dan Inosanto, Lee’s former training partner and best friend, paid Urquidez perhaps the highest compliment when he said that The Jet is the only martial artist who could have given Bruce a run for his money. “I don’t know how that fight would’ve turned out,” Inosanto told BLACK BELT recently. Urquidez, too, wonders. “I have no disrespect, but Bruce Lee never fought for real. He never had to prove himself,” The Jet says. “He did it for acting, I do it for a living. But because he’s not here to defend himself, I have to say he’s number one.

“There will never be another Bruce Lee, but there will never be another Benny The Jet either,” Urquidez adds. “I know in my heart (I could take him). I respect everybody, but I know what I can do, my desire to be the best. If Bruce Lee were here, he’d say, yes, he could beat The Jet, because he had hunger and desire, just like I do.”

Because he is 33, Urquidez is constantly asked about retirement. The subject annoys him.

Urquidez is so popular in Japan that he even has his own comic book (above) there. Urquidez is on the right, knocking out another opponent, as usual. He has 47 KOs in 56 victories.

“They’ve been asking me for the last four years ‘When are you going to retire? You’ve proven everything you have to prove.’ I tell them I’m not here to prove anything. I’m here because I’m good for the sport, because I’m the people’s favorite, and because I like it. Where else can you travel all over the world, fight the best, beat the best, and bring home money?

“I’m stronger now than I ever was. When I start getting hit a lot, then I’ll start thinking about retirement.” Until then, it’s business as usual for The Jet. Fighters will continue to take their best shot at knocking him out of the sky. But he’ll still be flying high when the smoke clears. cap4- Urquidez’ most memorable fight in Japan was against Kunimatsu Okao, who came out of retirement in the hopes of stopping The Jet. Okao knocked Urquidez down in the second round-the first time Benny had been to the mat Urquidez recovered in round three (1), then battered Okao into submission in the fourth (2-5). After Okao was counted out, Benny performed his victory backflip (6). Says STAR ratings head Paul Maslak: “When Benny turned mean. Okeo went down .”

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