[Rocco Del Sesto]

Benny Lee Bowser Rating 1 USA
LHW 1959-70
22 wins / 16 losses / 3 draws / 17 KO

Hometown: Austin, TX

Rating by: Rocco Del Sesto

In his first career bout in October 1959, Bowser was KO'd in the 3rd round by Alejandro Lavorante who was making his 2nd pro bout in a career that started out promising by ended abruptly 3 years later. In his next bout Bowser took on another newbie on the LHW/HW ranks, George Scrap Iron Johnson. Johnson decisioned Bowser in 6 rounds. After a couple wins and a draw in his next fights, Bowser was matched up against George Price(16-6-2,7) for the then vacant Texas LHW Title in May 1961. Price knocked out Bowser in the 9th round of the scheduled 12 rounder.

Between 1962 through 1965, Bowser compiled a 17-3-2 record fighting guys like LHW Tommy Sims(35-36-4,12), LHW Elmo (Tex) Henderson(25-18-1,15), LHW Luis Gutierrez(61-15-5,38), LHW Alonzo Harris(13-24-7,6), LHW Matt Plachy(11-1-0,9), HW Sherman Goodman(2-23-0,1), HW Joe Murphy Goodwin(1-15-1,0), MW/LHW Santiago Gutierrez(18-10-3,12) and MW Aman Peck(23-54-4,7) plus a number of unnamed lesser sorts. In September 1962 Bowser knocked out Tommy Sims in the 10th round to win the Texas State LHW Title. He successfully defended it against Santiago Gutierrez in April 1964 with a 10 round majority decision. Bowser gave Gutierrez a rematch for that title two months later and Bowser stopped Gutierrez in the 3rd round by TKO with a bad cut over Gutierrez' left eye. Then in November of 1964 Bowser lost the Texas State LHW title when Elmo (Tex) Henderson knocked out Bowser in the 2nd round. Those two fought a rematch for the title in October 1965 with Bowser winning back the title by a 10 round split decision. Bowser was knocked down in the 2nd round of the fight but came back on points to win the title back.

From then on Bowser began to take on some higher echelon of the LHW ranks and his record of 3-10-0 over the last 4 years of his career showed he wasn't quite up to par with those fighters. He could stay in the ring with them, but didn't have enough to put them away like his earlier career opponents. The down turn started with a 10 round decision loss to Karl Zurheidein March 1966 and then was KO'd in the 5th round by Joe Dorsey(27-8-1,20) in April that year. Bowser was then inactive until 1967 when he fought five, 10 round decision fights, loosing 4 of them to Karl Zurheide, Joe Burns, LMW Gypsy Joe Harris(24-1-0,8) and HW Gene Romero. The loss to Romero in August followed the one win for the year, a 10 rounder over Romero in June. In 1968 he lost 10 round decisions to Romero and Mark Tessman. In March 1969 he was KO'd in the 2nd round by AJ Staples(11-7-0,9). After knockout victories over Frank Evans(12-32-1,9), and Eddie Gray(1-3-0,0) in later 1969, Bowser ended his career with another 10 round decision loss, this time to Eddie Jones.