BoxRec

Just watched the fight on youtube. It seemed Benn had no desire to me. Collins was on top. Do you think the ankle injury was faked by Benn? Benn maybe not trained properly, side tracked in prep maybe??

Thoughts.

always looked a legit injury to me.

Just watched the second fight too. There was no desire, maybe just easy pay days and knowlingly going to quit. Not the Benn of old as I remembered him against Barkley etc etc

Knowingly going in to quit and Nigel Benn do not belong in the same sentence together.

I don't think he knowingly went in to quit but I remember thinking that he weren't prepared to put in what he had before. When his punches didn't hurt Steve much and he was getting forced back his heart wasn't in it; I also thought at the time that Benn maybe felt he deserved 'a testimonial' but there's no way he could have boxed as intensely as he did when he started out; he was just this side of psychotic.

Nothing more than 2 final pay days, he'd announced his retirement only a few months prior to their first bout.

Hagler2002 wrote:Nothing more than 2 final pay days, he'd announced his retirement only a few months prior to their first bout.

I can't remember him retiring but it was a while ago and I've slept since then; after the McClellen bout I can remember seeing he wasn't the same - understandable really. The crowds turned out hoping to see the game, fierce man he had been and he seemed to go through the motions a little, didn't he turn religious round the same time?

I heard, from an impeccable source, he did the weight in the sauna and had zero desire for either fight.

Yeah, he did (go religious)

I was at the Malinga fight, he announced his retirement straight after that, it was well received.

I always thought that the McClelland fight took everything out of Benn, it was almost an inhuman effort he put in that night, the best fight I have ever seen

orbtastic wrote:Knowingly going in to quit and Nigel Benn do not belong in the same sentence together.

He definitely took the easy way out his last two fights but no disgrace there he Was not the same after McClellan .he was prepared to go on being the warrior he washcloth two easy wins over nardiello and Garcia it this he fought his heart out with malinga and according to one of the judges he was screwed costhe judge added the scores wrong. That fight took out what was left after McClellan

Yeah but knowing in the middle of a fight that you're not going to budge Collins (or seemingly so, I thought he looked hurt a couple of times) and that your body is so screwed and you're also mentally not there isn't quite the same as training for a fight, thinking "well I'll put up a token effort for a couple of rounds so it doesn't look like a total quit job but I'll quit and take the money".

The first fight the injury looked legit, he went over awkwardly and was clearly in pain when trying to fight on. It's not like he theatrically fell over and rolled around the way Liston did and went oh my leg, I can't fight on.

he put a massive bet on himself for that second fight with collins didn't he? 40 grand or something. u wouldn't do that if u didn't intend to win.

he just had nothing left.

it amazes me how young benn, eubank, naz etc where when they packed it in (particularly with all they achieved). todays lot seem to go on and on.

stevieb_8006 wrote:he put a massive bet on himself for that second fight with collins didn't he? 40 grand or something. u wouldn't do that if u didn't intend to win.

he just had nothing left.

it amazes me how young benn, eubank, naz etc where when they packed it in (particularly with all they achieved). todays lot seem to go on and on.

I bet forty grand that he didn't.

That seems pretty absurd.

I'm sure 90% of people on here talking about fights have never actually watched anything but a couple of grainy minutes on youtube.

orbtastic wrote:That seems pretty absurd.

I'm sure 90% of people on here talking about fights have never actually watched anything but a couple of grainy minutes on youtube.

I watched it live on PPV. Remember it clearly. Heard the story about him doing the weight a couple of years ago. Nigel might have been saying it to save face, who knows? He certainly didn't look right, especially in the rematch.

The 40k thing, I meant.

The story/line that came out immediately after the fight is that DeFreitas knew the results of a brain scan which had a shadow on it but Benn did not, but they both knew he had little left after the McClellan fight but had an agreement that if his corner felt he was taking too much punishment that they would stop it. Now that's what happened. He didn't theatrically roll around pretending to be KO'd, there was a brief conflab, Benn looked disconsolate, slumps down and I think you can even hear DeFreitas say something and then they call it off straight away by signalling to the ref.

It was one-sided in the last 3 rounds or so but hardly an Ali-Holmes esque beating.

I've never managed to find anything in print about the scan, although I'm convinced that I read something at the time. I used to have a wedge of clippings from the papers of the day but someone threw them away (along with all my ticket stubs...). I understand that there was also some fall-out between the two after the fight.

His wife was also a major factor in his decision to retire.

I don't think the fall out was boxing related. As for the bet, I can't even remember it, just in my personal opinion, doubt it happened. Benn was a lot older and wiser by that stage.

The whole Collins reign was a major annoyance to me. He beat a shell of Benn, and even if
did quit - he has paid his dues to British boxing fans throughout the years - he is a human being
- not a machine. Have you never ever quit anything before Mimmy?

Fat Git wrote:The whole Collins reign was a major annoyance to me. He beat a shell of Benn, and even if
did quit - he has paid his dues to British boxing fans throughout the years - he is a human being
- not a machine. Have you never ever quit anything before Mimmy?

I'm not having a go and certianly not slagging Nigel Benn. My era of boxing was when Benn was around and he was a effing hero in my opinion. Benn, Eubank, Graham and Watson were bloody good at their trade and gave all. I would go to say nigel is in my top 5 fighters of all time. I remember the Watson v Benn fight, It was electric and proberly the best British fight I had seen up to that point.

At the time, and did watch both fights with Collins live on TV, never missed a Benn fight that was telelvised yes you think that Benn was maybe outclassed and did genuinely injure himself, but we all know what happens with the darl side of boxing and now some 20 years later we can digest the probability rather than dismissing the possible facts because we loved the boxer at the time.

Sure Benn was outclassed by Collins but what went on behind closed doors at the build up only Benn and his troop knew. So we cannot dismiss any thoughts that we have now.

We will never see another Nigel Benn in this country ever again, no man in boxing these days would go through the pain and suffering that Benn did.

mickey1975 wrote:

stevieb_8006 wrote:he put a massive bet on himself for that second fight with collins didn't he? 40 grand or something. u wouldn't do that if u didn't intend to win.

he just had nothing left.

it amazes me how young benn, eubank, naz etc where when they packed it in (particularly with all they achieved). todays lot seem to go on and on.

I bet forty grand that he didn't.

Im sure he mentions it in his auto biography.

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/1996/n ... n-a-loser/

there you go.my figure was out but I was sure I wasn't imagining it

There followed the fateful fight with McClellan before two defeats to Steve Collins convinced Benn the game was up. "When I fought Steve I knew I was kind of gone," says Benn, "but I still bet £100,000 I'd beat him, because I wanted to convince myself."

ive cut and pasted this from an interview on the bbc website.

He doesn't mention it in his book.

He says "for that last fight I felt my pride was at stake, and I went there intending to win".

"I couldn't disagree with my corner when they threw in the towel"



Mickey - "When I quit the ring after the last Steve Collins fight, he tried to persuade me to carry on in the fight game...That's how we fell out".

stevieb_8006 wrote:There followed the fateful fight with McClellan before two defeats to Steve Collins convinced Benn the game was up. "When I fought Steve I knew I was kind of gone," says Benn, "but I still bet £100,000 I'd beat him, because I wanted to convince myself."

ive cut and pasted this from an interview on the bbc website.

Ok, fair enough, first I've read/heard of it.