I have been looking to see if I can find any evidence of Gerald being damaged before the fight. Notice just after hes says "when you get nervous you forget" he briefly makes this strange face for what appears to be no reason, afterwards he looks a little frightened for just a moment, this is similar to when he is blinking during the fight with Benn. I think at this moment in the clip he felt some pain in his head, this face is the same one he pulls toward the end of the Benn fight. http://youtu.be/CmTtFda4HOA?t=5m48s
Yeah, that first fight with Jackson is likely where it started. He was eating some of Jackson's best shots.
There's something about this in War Baby, something about Gerald giving an interview after a fight where he's complaining about a shot he took really hurting him but replays show he was only grazed.
I posted a thread about a documentary about their fight and there's alot of stuff in there about his blinking ect and alot of good clips
I still think its sickening the sheer volume of punches to the back of the head Nigel Benn threw. He threw them on breaks and every chance he had. It's sickening to be honest in hindsight. It seems to get very little attention imo.
Yeah definately damaged before benn. Forgot what interview it was with his sparring partner at the time. He recalled how a jab hurt mccClellan, who confided in him after the session was over. A healthy mcClellan would've wrecked benn in 3 otherwise imo. His team for that fight were embarrassingly poor and could'nt give a flying f**k for their man
His massive weight cutting was probably the biggest factor in what happened to him imo. Taking punches from Julian Jackson while severely drained? Not the best idea. Also, the people around him at the time of the Benn fight were complete ******s who would probably have sent him into the ring that night in the condition he's in now.
My theory is; G-Man was a big man. He cut a lot of weight to make 160. Physically, Jackson could not hurt him, he was a bigger guy, equipped for taking even the biggest punches that genuine middleweights had to offer. He could walk through the hardest P4P puncher of all time! However; his brain could not absorb those shots although his physicality allowed him to stand up to them. Something bad happened behind his eyes in the first Jackson fight. That is my theory anyway.
I think Mclellan as mentioned was a massive weight cutter that really didnt help. This content is protected You can see in this pic how big Mclellan really is Moorer King and Tyson are big units and Mclellan was fighting at 160 and took some big shots there. I think there are some anecdotal sources mentioning he had had a few problems in sparring before and had mentioned about feeling "rushing water" in his brain. I think the damage was already there to a certain extent and the Benn fight was a war.
Didn't Emmanuel Steward comment on his excessive blinking after the Jackson match? But yeah Benn's rabbit punching was disgusting, bad refereeing also, tragic fight.
Yeah I recall reading that McClellan complained of bad headaches and the feeling of water rushing through his head. Steward confronted McClellan about his blinking and told him to stop fighting but McClellan wasn't having any of it. Even if McClellan KO'd Benn in the first (which he could've if the ref wasn't so inept), he'd wind up in the same position.
Damaged or not . Both Benn and McClellan left it in the ring that night, all that they had..... So lets just respect them both for what they gave, after all it could have gone either way...... Massive respect to both of them..... Legends for what they did in that ring !!!!:bbb:bbb:bbb:bbb:bbb