Nigel congratulated his son tonight saying he is a better fighter than he was and the he was just a brawler. Is this true or is he just bigging up his son?
Benn was a brawler with quick hands and good instincts, his fundamentals blew hot and cold and he wwsn`t well-schooled. This content is protected
Think it was more just his fighting style. People sometimes look to much into fundamentals. A lot of great fighters we,ve seen had poor fundamentals. Roy jones, ali, maybe naz. More just unorthodox styles imo. You could give benn great fundamentals and he,d probably be not as good for it.
Those fighters had excellent fundemntals. Roy Jones inparticular had them but he found his own way of fighting. You cant get to those sorts of levels without sound fundementals. I listened to an interview with him and how he says he had to learn to master the fundementals first to be able to develop his style. Its what makes him such a great fighter. Its like any sort of genius in their field.
Nigel Benn is the antithesis of a "one trick pony" as a boxer. He went from big punching brawler, with limited defence as a late 80s 160lber. To cute veteran, with respectable power and a great ticker as 168lber for much of the early/mid 90s.
Fundamentals are everything in boxing, however Benn showed great fundamentals in the vid I posted under this thread, Naz got beat by Barrera because of poor fundamentals and got floored by Kelly twice for the same reason.
Jones had crap fundamentals as did Naz, their amazing speed and athleticism got them by, Naz only went so far with his odd style.
I disagree massively more so eith RJJ. You cant box like that at the level and not have a good grounding in the fundementals. Its why imitations never work as they try to copy that style more than learn the fundemetals. You have to know the rules first before you break them, its the same in any discipline.
Nigel fought to his strengths, he could really punch, so his style was effective and suited a puncher. But people forget or don't know Nigel won a senior ABA Middleweight title, he could box, I'm not saying he was some sort of master boxer but he could box. If my memory is correct, Nigel boxed for West Ham Amateur Boxing Club and had 42 amateur fights winning 41, lost only to Rod Douglas in the ABA final in 1985 and he avenged that single defeat in the semi final of ABA's a year later. He went on to beat Johnny Melfah in the final and Melfah was a very competent boxer. Benn wanted to represent his country in the Commonwealth games in 1986 after winning the ABA's but they picked Rod Douglas instead, it's said they didn't pick Benn because of his aggressive style that didn't sit well with the ABA's boxing ethos. So Benn could box and mixed it with the very top amateurs in the UK and beat them, so this idea Nigel was some wildman with no method or skill simply isn't true, Nigel could box but he chose to fight a certain way to use his greatest asset... his power.
Jones and Naz started their boxing training when they were very young, by the time they were teenagers they already had an incredible amount of experience and had already mastered the fundamentals. This enabled them to developed their own unique styles, levels beyond what the basic fundamentals could possibly teach them, they're to boxing what someone like Mozart is to classical music. By the same token you would have to say that Mayweather, Pernell Whitaker had crap fundamentals ? Back in the day people probably said Ali and Sugar Ray Robinson had crap fundamentals. In his prime Jones barley lost a round let alone a fight and Naz was undisciplined later in his career because he was surrounded by yes men. Nigel Benn may have been a one trick pony but so was Red Rum.
