Do people rate McClellan higher than Benn all time P4P on here?

I also feel a 100% McLellan beats Benn.

 

Was it obvious? I don’t remember any mention of that before the Benn fight and certainly not in the build up. These things only became something of note after the fight as people were looking for answers.

As far as fight fans were concerned in the lead up to the fight, McClellan was going up in weight and was going to take Benn’s title from him in spectacular fashion. That was the story. McClellan was considered smack bang in the middle of his prime and if anyone was damaged goods, it was likely to be Benn as he had the harder career up to that point.

But when Benn disrupted the pre-fight narrative by taking out McClellan, the focus shifted and people looked for a reason as to why it had happened.

 

Benn rates higher, for mine.

McClellan carried with him a fair bit of hype, in my opinion. He was a very good amateur, but a fair-to-middling pro, who fell in love with his power and went all blunt-force offense, while being defensively bereft.

Benn learned early on (against Watson) that his own exceptional power wasn't a 'magic bullet' and went on to cultivate a more balanced offense, which was already nicely blended with a bob-and-weave defense.

No. Benn wasn't a brilliant technician, but he found a refined mixture of skills that worked for him; improved his shot selection; measured and timed his offensive commitment; pacing himself during a contest, with less of the all-out 'do or die' approach.

I also believe that Benn greatly improved his conditioning which, in turn, increased his durability against the world class opponents.

Had his career not been cut short so tragically, McClellan may well have learned from his loss to Benn and overcome some of those self-inflicted limitations, which left him relatively static and open defensively. But, as it stands, Benn was the better man pound-for-pound, in my view.

 

There's no evidence that he had any brain damage going in to the fight, is it actually a shock to hear he suffered headaches after taking licks off one of the biggest punchers ever?

 

True, anyone that takes part in dog fighting definitely has neurological problems in my opinion.

 

Idk what he said about a Gerald, but he ended up with Andy Lee on top.

https://www.boxingnewsonline.net/fl...had-a-fighter-ive-rated-higher-than-andy-lee/

 

Benn is better overall.

 

A broken hand is a bit different to a brain bleed, McClellan was fighting most of the fight with neurological problems. Its pretty clear with McClellan's constant blinking, and with the mouthpiece hanging out constantly, that there was serious issues going on with McClellan, and this was very early in the fight. Remember McClellan allowed himself to get counted out, not because he was quitting against Benn per se. It was due to the fact he was dying in the ring due to the brain bleed let that sink in.

 

I have no idea in all honesty, all i've heard is that McClellan used to complain of bad headaches. And this started to happen after the Jackson fight, so i believe McClellan was an accident waiting to happen. And it wasn't just a freak accident in the same vein as say Watson vs Eubank 2.

Again i know i have no real medical facts to back up my claim, but that's just what i personally believe.

 

Good post.

 

That’s right, Jel. I’ve never seen any medical professional come out and draw a correlation between existing neurological damage and anything that would have signaled that he was compromised.

Matter of fact, when these tough fights come up…Benn-McClellan, Griffith-Paret, etc…my memory always falls back to one of the best articles ever written on a title fight, Then All the Joy Turned to Sorrow. Penned by excellent sports journalist - Ralph Wiley - it covers the brilliant as it is brutal, and equally tragic Mancini-Kim fight. It offers an important bit of info on the nature of these types of injuries. I’ll quote Wiley here…

So while we often see these type of brain injuries as the end result of a sustained beating, I’ve also never heard anyone in the medical field refute Dr. Hammargren’s claim that it’s actually one single punch or a single combination after such a prolonged beating that does the real damage.

With regard to the question at hand, my feeling is that the fight should have been called in the first round when Benn was KOd outside the ring.

The ref is a malignant sh!t stain on the sport. He botched the call in round one and as the rabbit punches continued as the fight went on, he lost control… and there would be dire consequences. You hear this spineless nothing of a man in interviews and he’s too stupid, stubborn or aloof to realize he played a significant part in this tragedy.

Then I’d also echo that there must have been some merit to those rumblings about how McClellan wasn’t taking his road work seriously after he fired Emmanuel Stewart. He was sparring most of his training camp at the expense of cutting out cardio. The few people he had left in his corner were yes men, and wouldn’t dare call him out for his bullish!t. His trainer in the fight, I forget the guys name…was McClellan’s amateur coach and this guy had no business being anywhere near a title fight.

In the end, though I thought G-man had the obvious higher ceiling…I suppose now that I sit and think on it…I’ll have to rate them as equals - which is perhaps fitting as these two men are irrevocably tied to each other for life.