Review of McClellan Benefit Night On Saturday
Posted: 25 Feb 2007, 09:28
Fair play to Kevin Lushing for putting on the benefit dinner for McClellan last night where they raised almost £200k, well in excess of the £100k they were hoping to raise.
McClellan himself only made a very brief appearance - they announced that he was "too overwhelmed with emotion" to stay out in the main ballroom. They managed to get him at the side of the main stage for a few pictures holding Benns hand, before being taken away again.
Don King donated $25k, which allegedly also matched. Fighters I saw in attendance were Nigel Benn, Johnny Nelson, Junior Witter, Alan Minter, David Haye, Iran Barkley and Frank Bruno. Of these I chatted to a few at some point.
Nigel Benn was incredibly friendly and well spoken. Witter was chatting to everybody. He confirmed to me that he did indeed make the "winner takes all" challenge to Hatton and said that he is hoping to continue fighting for another five years. I asked if he tried at all to get on the DLH-Mayweather undercard considering he had fought on a Golden Boy Promotion before, but he said there was absolutely no chance of it, far too difficult to get on it. Hatton is still clearly the fight he wants.
Spoke to David Haye who came across extremely well. He said he is looking at having one fight at Heavyweight before coming back down to Cruiser to fight the winner of the Bell-Mormeck rematch, who he wants to be Bell. I asked about the Maccarenelli fight and he said that it was never on in the first place. Absolutely top bloke and I hope he does well.
Had a few words with Warren also. A bigger man than I expected him to be, he was still well chuffed about the show he put on last week and said he will be looking to get Katsidis on again over here. I also asked if he will ever be putting Khan and Kevin Mitchell in the ring together to which he replied "no, not while they're both fighting at different weights" so I couldn't resist but comment "sure what's the problem there, Khan loves fighting Super Featherweights, doesn't he?". Even Frank seemed to see the funny side of that...
Overall had a really good time. A few notable absentees - Naz, Calzaghe, Eubank (but rumoured to be there at some point), McGuigan, Jim Watt, Hatton, Collins etc. The night went very well and the auctions were raising some serious amounts of cash, with the highest being £22k (or somewhere around that) for an actual IBO belt (as opposed to a replica) that Naz won and had signed. I was surprised that it raised almost twice as much as a specially made WBC belt donated by the WBC.
No trouble at all and security didn't seem to be particularly tight, despite having heard otherwise before hand. The fighters in attendance seemed very happy to mix around and all were in good form - apart from Frank Bruno who looked agitated all night until he disappeared. He didn't look as though he wanted to be there at all and I didn't see him once speaking with anybody, he appeared to be in another world.
Finally my night was made better at the end when I won in the raffle a pair of ringside seats at the Millenium Stadium for the Calzaghe fight in April, and signed glove. All good!
McClellan himself only made a very brief appearance - they announced that he was "too overwhelmed with emotion" to stay out in the main ballroom. They managed to get him at the side of the main stage for a few pictures holding Benns hand, before being taken away again.
Don King donated $25k, which allegedly also matched. Fighters I saw in attendance were Nigel Benn, Johnny Nelson, Junior Witter, Alan Minter, David Haye, Iran Barkley and Frank Bruno. Of these I chatted to a few at some point.
Nigel Benn was incredibly friendly and well spoken. Witter was chatting to everybody. He confirmed to me that he did indeed make the "winner takes all" challenge to Hatton and said that he is hoping to continue fighting for another five years. I asked if he tried at all to get on the DLH-Mayweather undercard considering he had fought on a Golden Boy Promotion before, but he said there was absolutely no chance of it, far too difficult to get on it. Hatton is still clearly the fight he wants.
Spoke to David Haye who came across extremely well. He said he is looking at having one fight at Heavyweight before coming back down to Cruiser to fight the winner of the Bell-Mormeck rematch, who he wants to be Bell. I asked about the Maccarenelli fight and he said that it was never on in the first place. Absolutely top bloke and I hope he does well.
Had a few words with Warren also. A bigger man than I expected him to be, he was still well chuffed about the show he put on last week and said he will be looking to get Katsidis on again over here. I also asked if he will ever be putting Khan and Kevin Mitchell in the ring together to which he replied "no, not while they're both fighting at different weights" so I couldn't resist but comment "sure what's the problem there, Khan loves fighting Super Featherweights, doesn't he?". Even Frank seemed to see the funny side of that...
Overall had a really good time. A few notable absentees - Naz, Calzaghe, Eubank (but rumoured to be there at some point), McGuigan, Jim Watt, Hatton, Collins etc. The night went very well and the auctions were raising some serious amounts of cash, with the highest being £22k (or somewhere around that) for an actual IBO belt (as opposed to a replica) that Naz won and had signed. I was surprised that it raised almost twice as much as a specially made WBC belt donated by the WBC.
No trouble at all and security didn't seem to be particularly tight, despite having heard otherwise before hand. The fighters in attendance seemed very happy to mix around and all were in good form - apart from Frank Bruno who looked agitated all night until he disappeared. He didn't look as though he wanted to be there at all and I didn't see him once speaking with anybody, he appeared to be in another world.
Finally my night was made better at the end when I won in the raffle a pair of ringside seats at the Millenium Stadium for the Calzaghe fight in April, and signed glove. All good!
