BOXING : Benavides Wins, but Won’t Get Title

Jesse Benavides won a 10-round decision from World Boxing Assn. junior-featherweight champion Jesus Salud on Sunday, but he won’t be given the title because it was an unsanctioned fight.

“I feel like a champion right now,” Benavides said. “I feel like a legitimate world champion.”

But the WBA earlier ordered Salud to face No. 1 contender Luis Mendoza Saturday in Colombia and said it would strip the title from Salud if he did not.

Salud chose the Benavides fight, which was televised nationally, and plans to take legal action to prevent the WBA from stripping the title.

The fighters, both 26, weighed in at 124 pounds.

Salud (34-4) battered Benavides (29-1) with body shots through the first five rounds, taking control with a hard-charging style. In the fifth, a punch to the midsection followed by a combination left Benavides reeling before the bell.

“I had him in the fifth and I let him go,” Salud said.

In the sixth, Benavides, a former four-time national Golden Gloves champion from Corpus Christi, employed a stick-and-move game plan that turned the fight.

Benavides won the sixth and seventh rounds. By late in the eighth, Salud was missing with regularity.

Benavides steamed after Salud with a vengeance in the 10th. He landed a left uppercut and drove Salud into the ropes with a follow-up right hand. The fight ended with Benavides peppering a dazed Salud.

Two of the three ringside judges gave the nod to Benavides: John Whitley of Corpus Christi scored it, 97-95, and David McCullough of Houston, 97-93. Dickie Cole of Dallas saw it even, 95-95.

The loss won’t help Salud with the WBA.

“They’ll use it against us,” said Stanley Hoffman, one of Salud’s managers.