How good was Nigel Benn?

Nigel Benn was a ****ing animal, beast of a fighter.

 

Oh let's see now; Dan Sherry, Gary Stetch (pre ko), Tony Thornton, Ray Close, Mauricio Amaral, Steve Collins, fat man club fighter Dan Schommer, Joe Calzaghe and Michael Watson. As for Eubank schooling Benn, is that why Eubank was pissing blood for a week after the fight and was swallowing his own blood at the end of the fourth round And to your previous post, Benn was not great he was very good, (and exciting). Great is used way too much.

 

Thornton and Watson were schooled, and, oh, let's see - Holland, Logan, Corti, Benn, Malinga, Giminez, Holmes, Rocchigiani, Wharton, Thompson.

An uppercut out of a clinch caused Eubank to bite his own tongue and split it.

Nigel Benn was great. You can't watch the McClellan fight and say that's not a great fighter in there.

 

Canty, Stretch, Schommer and Calzaghe were wide-stanced southpaws and Eubank didn't like fighting southpaws. Sherry ran like a rabbit.

 

I'm sorry, but the exchange between widdy and atberry genuinely made me laugh.

For what it's worth widdy, there's nothing about my post that's incorrect. While I'm here, I should probably say that I rather like Benn.

I like how brave he was both in the ring and in his choice of opponents. He actually wanted to fight the very best, unlike a certain other British 'icon'.

I like his aggression, even when his power failed to match it after a certain point.

I liked his attitude and the venom that was inside him.

I like how he adapted his style after getting beaten by an inferior fighter like Eubank. Even so, he should forever be ashamed of doing so.

But if you look at his overall results, it's clear that he was inferior to the fighters I named earlier. Even if you incorrectly believe that the McClellan win did not have extenuating circumstances, the vast majority of Benn's career show that he was below a certain level and that the McClellan win you have to treat as an anomaly.

In the past I've stated that Benn was a better SMW than a MW. That's probably an error on my part. He was definitely a more well-rounded and consistent fighter at the higher weight. But his lack of one-punch power at the higher weight was probably too big a trade off for what he gained. I actually find it quite difficult to quantify.

Maybe it's a personal thing. I'd rather beat a top fighter than lose to a mediocrity like Eubank than be consistent at a slightly higher level but still not be good enough to beat the best fighters.

 

And still outboxed Eubank for periods that frankly were humiliating.

 

One last thing: ANYONE who believes that any version of Benn could beat Collins needs their head looking at. There is nothing that Benn had in the locker that could stop Collins wearing Benn down and eventually stopping him. Collins is anathema for Benn.

 

Did he? He was constantly running, only occasionally stepping in for a lead right or flurry, then back on his bicycle. He fought like a coward after being heavily dropped by a jab in 60 seconds and didn't come close to outboxing Eubank. You can't throw more than one punch at a time (Eubank) at a moving target (Sherry) - it's not physically possible...but, study Eubank's defense in this fight, he blocks almost every Sherry punch, so how can you score rounds for Sherry if he wasn't landing and Eubank was landing one here, one there, most of his shots thrown..

Then Sherry weasled out of the fight at the end when Eubank was on the verge of brutally stopping him.

The truth will set you free, son.

 

I think we did. Thread-starting and PM-sending, I thought.

 

Watson was schooled?!

In which fight?

The robbery where Eubank got totally owned in the Championship rounds despite his very best efforts as he knew it should have been level? Or the fight where he was outclassed for the vast majority of the fight and threw the most desperate of Hail Marys to save it for himself? And he had to do this against an opponent who quite possibly had a pre-existing injury. Shameful.

Speaking of Championship rounds, Eubank was lucky to get away with the victory against Malinga, due to being utter wank (again) in said rounds. I had Malinga winning the first time I saw the fight. And the second. Third as well. And each time after that.

As for Benn, and we both know that the second fight was a clear victory for Benn. And this despite the stylistic advantage that Eubank was oh-so-dependent on. Horrid fight, mostly devoid of good work from both men. I try not to think about it much.

I love how you mention Logan as if he's worth mentioning in some way. Also, seeing as the record books have L's against Eubank's name in the fights against the fun but average Thompson, you may want to redefine your definition of the term 'schooled'.

 

How would you know? You wouldn't recognise the truth if it arse****ed you.

Eubank wasn't even close to stopping Sherry. They were both tired. Eubank got frustrated at getting the runaround by a journeyman and petulantly butted Sherry with all his might. He deserved to be disqualified, but yet again he was saved because "An unbeaten record holds a lot of power, and allowed me to get decisions I did not deserve".

If Eubank moved forward with more agility than your average elephant, he would have been able to close Sherry down without any problem whatsoever. But he didn't, because:

a) He was physically incapable of doing so. And

b) He didn't have the confidence to do so because he knew his offensive game was limited, one dimensional, and downright lousy.

 

Try the fight in which Eubank was leading 7-2 over Watson while in third gear after nine rounds. He lost his legs due to losing 3st in a few days, and Watson simply did not take advantage.

Eubank's perfectly executed (despite being unstatic!), pin-point uppercut (directly after being KD'd for the first time in his life) - you know, the fateful shot with that perfect arc to it - was what clearly caused Watson to suffer paralysis. Any pre-existing injury first existed only earlier in that same round when an exhausted Eubank somehow measures Watson in the middle of an exchange, stepping in with a right hand that consisted of zero back-pull and had all his weight behind it, (before swinging away and getting Watson into the ropes).

Eubank made Thompson look like a donkey for six rounds in both fights, before his eye shut both times.

 

Excuses, excuses if Eubank was as great as you think he was he'd have found a way to deal with ANY kind of fighter, he showed how inconsistant he was by getting outboxed by talentless, fat, club fighter Schommer.

 

Clearly, one more flurry and Sherry would've been out.