"They sent him over here to bash me up. Look at him now."

So said Nigel Benn while Gerald McClellan was receiving urgent medical attention after their fight. This was one of the most destructive fights in boxing history. McClellan's injuries are well documented, but Benn also spent the night in hospital, and was never the same fighter.

For those who want to watch the fight online, here's a link to my Daily Motion channel:

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To be fair to Nigel as defending WBC Super-Middleweight champion all he could hear people saying and reporters writing was how brilliant Gerald was. He was awesome but Nigel probably felt glee didn’t get any respect at all for being champion. As for the fight the ref was useless. Especially the way he kept pushing Gerald back from Nigel in the first round. But to be fair to Nigel the interview was conducted in the ring after the biggest win of his career and he absolutely meant what he said. A brutal sport with a brutally honest response to a career defining win. Did Nigel mean to do that damage to Gerald?Ask him. I doubt it. Was he glad his hand got lifted in victory rather than the Americans who came to England to pick up another belt on his way to RJJ? Of course he was. That’s boxing. And it’s brutal.

 

I picked McClellan to stop Benn !

 

So did I. Most people thought McClellan would.

 

I think most did, mate.
I can't recall any of the 'experts' picking Benn tbh.
I just didn't think Nigel had the chin to take his shots. The first kd of Benn, I thought that's it, game over.
But bloody hell he showed balls did Nigel.

 

and he almost did, some refs would have stopped it.

 

I have never watched this fight and I never will.

Having said that I do think that Nigel Benn felt deep remorse over what he ended up doing to McClellan.

 

Being my favorite middleweight (next to Roy Jones) I wanted Benn and was flying high after RJJ beat Toney a few months earlier. So matching Benn with Jones was a dream fight that almost came off.

This is a gladiator sport and things said in or out of the ring is warrior code. Benn was interviewed immediately after his greatest win and had no idea that Gerald would end up in the state he did.

The 29th anniversary is coming up next month. Time flies my friends!!

 

Hi Janitor. Why not watch the fight? No doubt you have your own reasons. But may I suggest you watch it. It was brutal, ugly but it personified why boxing is the sport it is. Ugly, brutal, honest and very very nasty at its absolute core.

 

Benn was dirty as hell was throwing rabbit punches the whole fight, not a big McClellan fan but Benn put Gerald in the condition he is in now, punches to the back of the head will do that and the ref just allowed it disgraceful.

 

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I know. But it was the refs fault.

 

Same here.

 

It is a shared fault: Benn, the referes, McClellan's corner. All of them.

 

Blame that bloody fool referee for that. Should have been banned for life for his incompetence. But guess what. He got a lifetime award of some sort from his home country.