G-Man..How Good Was He?

I was thinking the same thing. Eubank was a hard guy and had the chin to be able to stand up to Mac, unlike many.

Mac did have poor defense and gaps in his game, but he was so fast and powerful almost no one got to get to the point of being able to exploit any of his holes.

McClellan beat Roy Jones in the amateurs in 1988. In doing so, he was able to get Roy against the ropes several times from what I read. If that happened as pros, Roy could be in some trouble. I'm not saying Roy wouldn'tve won, but you put Mac's power + Roy's chin + no headgear and you can see where there might be problems for RJJ, especially if Gerald were able to drive Roy into the ropes and/or cut the ring off.

I should note, though, that Roy apparently also left McClellan sore in the jaw. So the no headgear may have helped RJJ as well.

 

He was a great talent and under Manny STeward he could have went on to be a great fighter but after he left Steward he became very sloppy and just went looking for the first round KO and IMO that lead to his tragic state that he is in right now. The McClellan from the first Jackson fight IMO would have stopped Benn in about 4 rounds.

If he did KO Benn in the first I think he would have gotten even worse and even more sloppy kinda like Edwin Valero today. McClellan had a great jab but stopped using it after the first Jackson fight he also became a head hunter and didn't bang to the body like he would before.

 

Maybe I'm wrong then - haven't seen it for a while - but I thought Benn was ahead and taking over.

McClelland did show some serious class doing what he did in that first round though. To do that to someone like Benn so early was impressive.

 

Very good, but clearly not as good as Nigel Benn. Poor ******* all the same, could hit like a mule

 

Gman would have brutally KOed Roy. No question about it.

 

How is he a poor *******?

The torchure of dogs and all animals means Benn served justice to him in my eyes.

 

And there is always one complete ****in jerkoff that has to bring this up everytime his name gets mentioned.

 

I tend to agree with this. He became almost purely a head hungry power puncher past a certain point, though earlier in his career seemed more skilled and patient in setting up his punches.

He'd have been countered to death by Jones or Hopkins or Toney.

 

In order for Jones to counter Gman he would have had to take at least one punch first. Even the biggest Jones nuthuggers know what would have happened had Gman landed a good punch on Roy.

Or are you saying that Gman would not have landed one single good shot on Roy? :huh

 

seems alot have forgot just what a beast mclellan was. you think it'd easy to simply counter punch a wrecking machine like that? you make it sound soooo simple. :-(

 

I don't think he would have beaten Jones, Toney or Hopkins personally. Jones was just unbeatable in those days IMO, his speed would have carried him to a UD over Gerald. Toney would have had a hard night with G-Man, but I believe Toney's chin and defence would have saw him stand up to McClennan all night and gradually break him down with hard accurate counterpunches and eventually stop him late on. Hopkins also was slightly too skilled for McClennan in my opinion. I imagine him having a similarly tough battle with him as he would have had with Toney, but I see Hopkins grinding out a narrow points decision.

McClennan was physically superb, evil punching power and he was tough as nails, but I would fancy any of those three to get the better of him more often than not. McClennan was definitely good enough to compete at that level though, for all I know he could've beaten any of them as you can never rule out a guy with his power.

I would have fancied him to beat Eubank or Collins or in the mid-90s. I don't think he had ATG ability, but he was still an excellent fighter.

 

He was very flawed technically and would go right hand crazy, leading to constant balance issues, especially when he'd overextend after missing the right. Not to mention his open guard and lack of any defensive positioning period. He seemed to rely on his chin. With a mover/range-controller like Jones, he'd be missing that right hand all night, which would in turn be timed and countered constantly. I don't see any way McClellan wins, not even by fluke KO. Same applies with the likes of Toney and Hopkins. He gets overrated today on the basis on what happened with Benn, the fact that he didn't get to finish his career out, and because people were just as in love with his power as he was, without seeing how flawed he was as a technician. He was behind a guy like Julian Jackson in that regard, and a lesser puncher prime for prime, P4P as well. He did have the better chin though, by a fair distance, which helped him out in their meetings(not to mention being the naturally bigger man against a fading version of Jackson).