Nigel Benn's Best Performance

yes it is an opinion, but the only fighters who were good enough to fight jones but didn't are the ones who didn't garner the interest of the US networks by fighting over here on undercard PPV, getting an international fanbase and making the fight happen

thats how you get a fight with the #1 P4P fighter on the planet

it's not a charity, and fighters who have reached the very top don't give handouts to fighters who 'call them out' but do little about it

 

And yet when fighters like Calzaghe who are ranked higher than their US counterparts, and making massive bank selling out 70,000 seat stadiums in the UK it's "he needs to come to america"

Get lost ffs, nobody cares

 

it's not fair that fighters have to come to the US to make their defining fights, but that's the way it is - and there is a hotbed for every sport on the planet where the best sportsmen in their field usually go to prove themselves

the difference with boxing is that it has all these bogus 'world titles', which is a promoter's dream and means that fighters who are not the elite of the sport can make very good money staying away from the US and fighting lesser challengers with padded records...

calzaghe was an excellent fighter, and from memory he was probably the best fighter who never took on the best fighters available to him

he certainly wasn't a 'paper champ', which made it all the more frustrating that he never wanted to make a fight against hopkins or jones happen until it was too late...

yes i know about the 'broken down' negotiations with hopkins, but that was easily solved if calzaghe crossed the pond and he could have EASILY made that fight happen. hopkins held all the cards in that negotiation and it was doomed from the start

if you don't understand (or want to) the power of the US networks (just like in the NBA or any other prime time sport over here), then you won't understand that it's the biggest bargaining chip you can have

 

The McClellan fight clearly stands out. Benn took the hardest shots he has ever taken and yet still somehow picked himself up, dug deep and came back to get the win. Brutal fight neither fighter left the ring the same, it ended the GMan's career and took years off Benn's.

The Barkley fight also stands out. Great performance from Benn to dominate such a tough and then highly regarded opponent. Both these fights show it doesn't matter how tough you are or how hard you hit, if you stand and trade with a prime Benn your in for a painful night.

As for Jones yeah he would have very likely beaten Benn. But we will never know for sure as Jones for some reason decided to leave the most competitive and lucrative division in boxing to fight at light heavy against a 40 year old McCallum and the likes of Griffin and Johnson. About as bad a career move as you can make in terms of legacy, right up there with Bowe dumping his belt in the bin, clear sign of a fighter avoiding tough opponents.

 

thats a myth
its always a case of a fighter who hasn't crossed the pond and made the fight happen if it never did, unless weight class plays a factor

jones wasn't a good promoter, ruled a weak division, and the common denominator for fighters who didn't fight him is that they stayed in europe and did nothing to improve their chances of fighting him - since most fighters people mention are euro based fighters who pretty much stayed there

 

beating a half dead mcclellan is his best win?? You british guys are so bad!

 

It's not a myth that he left a more competitive division for a weaker one, that's a fact and he can't even use his weight an excuse as he could have still easily made super middleweight.

Yes he was a terrible promoter which is why he never had a big following until he beat Ruiz which was after his prime. Yes he ruled a weak division but he chose that division he could have ruled a tougher division had he not moved up and been willing to make some compromises.

Benn and Collins had both fought extensively in the US so it's not like they were adverse to travelling. Personally I think both parties expected too much money for the fights to ever be made, but Jones really didn't even try and even Calzaghe who gets criticised for taking the easy route was willing to take a pay cut to get a defining fight when he fought Lacy. Realty was HBO were losing on every Jones fight so they were unwilling to stump up more cash for a bigger fight where they would risk losing even more money.

 

Can PrinceN and holdmybeer kindly **** off out of this thread please?

Onto the subject, it has to be the Mclellan fight. Hatton's Hook said it best earlier, the sheer brutality and tragic ending has taken the shine off the win, and people don't want to talk about it, but that was an excellent win for Benn. Gerald was a beast who outlasted Julian Jackson in a shoot out, and was touted to be a huge star in the sport. Benn was seen as a stepping stone, Gerald was supposed to come over here, take the WBC title and set up a unification fight. Getting put down like that in the first round, Benn looked out of it, and the rest is history.

On an off topic note, Mclellan's corner and trainer were criminally incompetent :-(

 

From a purely technical perspective, Eubank 2 was probably Benn's best performance because even though Eubank had lost his killer instinct after putting Watson in a coma the year bofore, Eubank was still a superb technician.

But the McLellan fight was obviously his career defining fight and one of the most determined performances in not only British boxing history but all of boxing history.

In the pre-fight build up, McLellan told Benn's Dad he was going to "hurt his boy" and that to go into the ring with him he had to be prepared to die.

Now I'm all for pre-fight trash talking, pre-fight press conference bust ups etc but it must always stop short of involving the opponent's family and fighter stating he wants to inflict permanent damage on an opponent.

Every British boxing pundit except the Daily Star writer (forgot his name) had Benn to last no longer than 5/6 rounds - most saying he wouldn't last 1 or 2 at most. This really pissed Benn off that his own country was writing him off.

Benn has said since that he knew he was going to get knocked down during the fight but that he would get up no matter what and because of this there was no doubt what so ever he was going to win the fight.

McLellan had been so used to knocking opponents down and them not getting up that you could tell he was finding it tough to digest that Benn was getting back up and came back stronger. As the fight progressed. you could tell that there were times in the fight that McLellan knew he was he had found himself in deeper water than he had anticipated and more surprisingly that Benn was prepared to drown himself to win.

As for all this nonsense about Benn's rabbit punches, McLellan's punch aimed all most square on top of Benn's head as Benn was down on the ropes stretched his neck ligaments and could have broken Benn's neck and paralysed him.

Benn sustained damaged neck ligaments, a broken nose, a broken jaw and had a shadow on his brain - no version of Gerald McLellan beats Nigel Benn on that night...

 

So your saying McClellan wasn't the big favorite going into that fight? And that his health problems were obvious to everyone in the world and that he was just sent against Benn as a sacrifice? Because that's not the way I've heard in.

In fact, I watched the fight earlier on YouTube with the ITV coverage and McClellan was the clear favorite. All the bookies were expecting him to win within six rounds, with most of them expecting McClellan to stop Benn in three.

 

Benn was too quick. Barkley hit Benn at one point and hurt him and then Benn backed up, but he recovered. The only way Barkley wins this is if Benn makes a careless mistake. Barkley had one great thing. When he was being hit he still traded, so that gave him a chance to hit his opponent when his opponent was vulnerable. Worked with Hearns and Van Horn and also with Benn, but Benn recovered.

 

Its like you lot,you benefit from the best refs,you find them easier,we get some frog eater ref who wasn`t good enough and could hardly speak english.

 

Curious as to why the poll has Galvano II rather than the first fight. The first win over Galvano is very underrated on Benn's resume. Benn was the underdog coming into the fight, and was up against a hostile crowd as well as a very awkward style match-up.

The inconclusive ending from the fight shouldn't obscure that Benn was inevitably going to steamroller Galvano. There is a reason Mauro was looking for a way out - Benn was in that mindset where he would not be denied and was willing to do whatever it took to win.

McClellan is obviously the best performance of Benn's career, but Galvano I is right up there in the second tier with Barkley and Eubank II. People look at Galvano's later career losses (or never actually saw him fight and just rely on boxrec), and draw the conclusion that he was a Nardiello or Seillier level fighter. At the time of the Benn fight he was on a roll, and there weren't many supermiddles who could have gone into the lion's den and came away with the title.

 

None of those.

Wharton was his best performance; Doubled his jabs beautifully, moved his feet beautifully, moved his head beautifully, timed his right hands and counter-punched off the ropes.

 

Galvano I was a far better performance than Galvano II...

Giminez was a better performance than Galvano II for the perfect counter-punching.

Benn was a bit of a plodder and grabber in Galvano II. Not one of his best performances!

Against Nicky Piper he was magnificent - didn't waste a single punch and threw pin-point, heavy body shots, and finished him with about a 10-15-punch combo. Why isn't that listed?

He was also impressive against Lenzie Morgan, in that he out-jabbed a 6'4" light-heavy for 10 rounds, who had just out-jabbed Tiozzo for 10 rounds and been robbed.

He wasn't impressive against Logan or Sherry - he was sloppy.