Nigel Benn
World boxing champion: Nigel Benn
From 1988 to the mid 1990s, the UK had a glut of middleweight fighters, the likes of which I’d never seen before.
Each had different skills:
- Michael Watson – excellent defence, brilliant boxer but without a perceived major punch. Solid fighter who took on Mike McCallum the legendary “bodysnatcher” and was neck and neck with him until he was stopped in the 11th round. He would fight on to figure in the middleweight scene now developing.
- Chris Eubank – elusive boxing style with a fiery punch that could damage any opponent. Eubank’s always appeared to pull victory from the jaws of defeat.
- Nigel Benn – knockout specialist with fearsome power, his weakness (and what made him exciting to watch) was an apparent “glass chin” – always one shot from winning and one shot from losing.
So why does Nigel Benn stand out?
Put simply – Nigel Benn was a warrior!
He is to this day the best and most exciting British fighter I have followed. He fought all the top ranked contenders, he fought at home and America and there were some feared fighters around in his weight division.
Nigel Benn offered to fight the legendary Roy Jones Junior in his prime, for free in his home town, Roy Jones wouldn’t take the fight and never did fight Benn.
Just watch his battle with the hard hitting Iran Barkley here, who had earlier beaten the legend Thomas “the hitman” hearns twice!
Benn in the black shorts.
In April 1988, the dark destroyer won the Middleweight Commonwealth title.
In May he won a non title fight inside two rounds, in October and December he defended his title.
In February 1989 he again defended his title, then he had a non title fight in March then put his title on the line against Michael Watson in May.
He lost his title after burning himself out trying to knockout Watson and the referee stopped the contest in round 6.
Most fighters would have come back slowly, building confidence and working their way back to a shot at the title, but this was Nigel Benn.
Benn went to America!
In October that year he won, then he won again in December. In January 1990, he won again, then 3 months later in the April of that year, he took on a dangerous Doug DeWitt for the WBO middleweight title.
After a vicious battle Benn triumphed and was now the middleweight champion of the world!
He defended his title less than 4 months later against Barkley (see above) and just 3 months after that, he put his title on the line against the cagey but dangerous British fighter, Chris Eubanks.
Benn lost his title, he was ahead on two score cards when he was stopped in the ninth round, exhausted.
Benn went on to win his next six non title fights, before challenging an italian (Galvano) in Italy (where you have to knock out your opponent to get a draw) for the WBC super middleweight title.
The fight was stopped in the 4th due to Galvano suffering cuts, Benn was ahead on all three score cards and took the title. He was champion of the world again!
After routine defences and a rematch with Galvano were won, Benn put his title on the line against his old foe, Chris Eubank.
A much more patient Benn turned up for the fight, openly taunting Eubanks before and during the fight, the dislike between the two fighters clear to all.
They fought out a nail biting draw, but most pundits, myself included, thought Benn had clearly won the fight.
A couple of tough points winning defences later, Benn took what almost everyone outside his own training camp thought, was boxing suicide!
Nigel Benn decided to defend his title against Gerald McClellan!
Gerald McClellan (The G-man) perspective:
The G-man, was not taken beyond 5 rounds in his previous 14 fights.
Included in this list of wins was a 1st round knockout of John Mugabi (to win the WBC middleweight title) and a 5th round stoppage of the awesome punching Julian Jackson. He had rematch with Jackson also, in which the G-man destroyed him inside one round!
As an amateur, McClellan beat Roy Jones jnr.
His only two defeats came early on in his career and both on points.
Ring magazine rated McClellan as the 27th most dangerous puncher of all time.
Of his 31 wins, 29 had come by knockout and he had never been taken beyond 8 rounds in his entire boxing career!
Not a single one of the recognised pundits or magazines, gave Benn a chance, McClellan entered the ring a 1-4 on favourite to win.
The fight!
Benn engineered a master stroke. In the first round McClellan hit Benn so hard when he went down he knocked him clean through the ropes!
Benn spent much of the round under a fierce attack, on the ropes.
McClellan must have thrown about 8 punches to Benn’s 1, yet at the end of the round, Benn was still there!
Benn appeared to have taken a lot of the firepower out of the G-man, and set about hitting him with his own fierce punches.
Round after round they stood toe to toe, Benn looking sharp against his more dangerous opponent, but constantly the crowd was alert to the fact that one punch could turn it all back in the G-man’s favour.
Benn was fighting smartly, he was using his head, not missing with many and targeting his shots instead of firing wildly.
Benn was rocking McClellan to his feet with some of his shots, but still he stood there, firing back.
In the eighth round McClellan rocked a now tiring Benn again and followed it up with another volley of punches, but despite hitting the deck, Benn was still there.
After the ref had counted and checked that Benn was still ok to continue, McClellan charged forward to finish the job and Benn landed two fierce shots that seemed to drain McClellan to his boots!
Because of this the G-man was unable to finish Benn in the remaining time and held on.
Round 9 was a tentative affair, but towards the end of the round Benn seemed to have cleared his head and started catching McClellan again with some big shots.
Amazingly, despite all the fierce blows McClellan had landed, Benn was still there, still coming forward and looking to land power shots.
In that fateful 10th round, Benn landed but not as hard as the shots landed in earlier rounds, the G-man sank to one knee after an exchange, then another exchange he sank to one knee again and let the ref count him out.
Benn had done the almost impossible and won the fight, a fight that no one in the boxing world had given him a chance in.
Sadly, as we now know, Gerald McClellan suffered severe brain damage as a result of the fight. He fell into a coma and had emergency surgery to remove a blood clot.
As for Nigel Benn, he had a couple more winning defences before losing his title on points then losing two further fights to try and regain his title, but it was clear to all that his heart was no longer in it.
On that fateful night we witnessed the end of the dark destroyer, as the fans knew him.
In the ring, as a fighter, Nigel Benn is one of the most exciting and bravest fighters I have ever seen.