by Nigel Benn
When I started out, my ambitions were to own a terraced house and a BMW. Within months of turning pro, I had more offers of cars than I knew what to do with. Car dealers would sponsor me with BMWs, others would lend me their flashiest motors. One dealer had my name in huge letters down the side of the car. I was more conspicuous than a double-decker bus and didn’t like that at all. It was uncanny being able to drive any car I wanted. I’d only recently got a driving licence and my only advanced training, necessary for some of the high-powered vehicles offered, was crashing into a lamp-post at Ford’s.
I became a celebrity overnight. Only 18 months previously, I’d been on the dole and catching buses everywhere — providing I could afford them, which was not always the case. Stardom was bound to go to my head and it did, at least until I became accustomed to it. Amateur boxing had given me prizes but no cash. The only money I had received was from the social security office: about £38 a week, with which I had to support Sharron and Dominic while living in a hostel that gave us no privacy.
Our daughter Sadé (we pronounce her name Shaaday) was born the following year on 14 October 1987. She was the first girl in the family. All my brothers had produced boys up to that point and I was over the moon. My parents had always wanted a girl and now I had come up with the goods. I gave Mum what she had always wanted. Sadé was a cheerful, smiling, lovely little girl. I was overawed. But what a handful! She’s DC — different class. Someone suggested to me recently that she might give me trouble when she grows up. I responded, ‘No, she’ll give someone else trouble. A young man will come to me one day and say, “Mr Benn, your daughter’s breaking my ass.” I’ll say, “Hell, what do you think I had from the mother, then? All right? So leave it now and stop knocking on my door, or I’ll set my Rottweiler on you. Piss off and leave me alone.”’
Burt McCarthy was a good, clean, honest man who never took money off me until I got going. Sometimes I felt he pampered me too much. I wanted to get out there and fight and I mean fight, go at it hammer and tongs. But he gave me dead bodies to knock out. After a while, Burt wasn’t sure that he could give 100 per cent to me. ‘That could be unfair to a talent such as his. I might regret the decision a thousand times, but I can’t do things by half. I feel it’s better to leave him to somebody else,’ he said. It was 1987, and after about 12 fights, I changed managers and went for one who had a lot more clout — Frank Warren.
Frank was confident about my prospects. He told the world that I could become a millionaire within the next three years and insisted I could take over from Frank Bruno as the biggest draw in British boxing. How right he was!
At the start, Frank Warren got me the fights I wanted. You get to a stage where you can’t find mugs any more and you have to fight top guys. Frank told me, ‘You want a title fight? I’ll get you one.’ And he did. Before we fell out, Frank was very kind to me. He lent me £10,000 as a deposit on my first house which I bought with Sharron in East Ham in 1988.
Ronnie Yeo became my next victim at Bethnal Green on 3 November. He was from Tennessee and a very experienced boxer. He actually threw a punch at me and, before it could connect, mine had already struck him like an Exocet. It was a single punch knock-out and the referee didn’t even bother taking up a count. Yeo crashed to the canvas in 57 seconds of the first round. He was really hurt.
Ian Chantler was a southpaw (left-handed) who helped create the record for my fastest fight. I laid him out in 16 seconds. He was like a new-born foal trying to get up and not quite making it. While he was on the floor, he made swimming and flying motions like a clumsy swan. That was my quickest KO ever. All he had time to do was walk to the centre of the ring and try three jabs — none of which connected.
My twelfth and final fight in my first year as a professional was a milestone in every sense of the word. It was against Reggie Miller at the Albert Hall on 2 December and I KO’d him in the seventh, but he made me work for it. This was the longest I’d ever fought. Up until this time, my fights had never gone beyond the fourth round. I thought that if he could stay on his feet he might even snatch victory so I had to pull it out of the bag. He made me realise there was another level which I had not yet reached. The Dark Destroyer wasn’t doing his job fast enough on this one and Miller was the only person who ever made me feel that I had to change.
I wasn’t expecting such a hard fight but I was, nevertheless, confident that I would win. He was taller than me, and two pounds heavier, and he had me on the ropes a few times. The only time I got him, I went boom with my left and it exploded on his chin. He went down and his legs caved in. It was a good fight and I was pleased for the competition. I should have been fighting American Kenny ‘The Blizzard’ Snow who had won 28 of his 30 fights but he had to cancel. After the fight I felt proud of myself because I had wanted to prove I wasn’t a one-minute wonder knocking over bums and I did that. Miller was a somebody, his record showed that and he caught me with some good hooks. I had showed the critics that I could take a good punch as well as give one.
By this time I was itching for a title fight, impatient for a place on the world ratings list which only my idols, Mike Tyson, who was number one heavyweight and WBC, WBA and IBF champion, and Marvin Hagler, number one middleweight, appeared. The middleweight list gave me most of my targets. At that time, the 15 top fighters were Marvin Hagler (USA), Thomas Hearns (USA), Sumbu Kalambay (Italy), Frank Tate (USA), Mike Nunn (USA), Mike McCallum (Jamaica), Michael Olajide (Canada), Herol Graham (England), Chong Pal Park (Korea), Lindell Holmes (USA), Robbie Sims (USA), Donald Lee (USA), Tony Sibson (England) and Roberto Duran (Panama). I wanted to see the name Nigel Benn in the number one slot.
My career was to change dramatically after a chance meeting with Ambrose Mendy at a club in the West End. It was on the night I had been lent a Bentley by Richard Clements, a car dealer, and pretended to everyone that I owned it. I was only 24, and went with three mates to various clubs up West, giving it large. Extra large, in fact. When I drove the car, people showed a lot of respect and courtesy. I thought it was me at first, but then I realised it was the car they were admiring. I suppose that’s when my love of flash cars started.
Ambrose and I started chatting and he was giving me all these big words. I was impressed. He was DC — he looked good, dressed expensively, talked big. I thought he was the business. He was the first black man I had seen who I thought had it all. I’d never met anyone like him before. I thought he was the best thing since sliced bread. Afterwards, he invited me to his large home in Wanstead. This was real money. A swimming pool in the back garden and two Mercedes parked in the drive. Here was a man who had done very well for himself. He was giving me a lot of patter — so much that I thought this is the man for me.
8
MENDY v WARREN
Frank Warren and Ambrose Mendy both had important roles in my fight career. I have got on fine with Frank Warren since he and American impresario Don King staged my later fights. He’s a good promoter and has become a much calmer person following his shooting in the East End of London.
However, when he was my manager in the first half of 1988, disillusionment set in because I wanted his individual attention. At the same time, I was becoming more susceptible to the silver-tongued eloquence of Ambrose Mendy. Fate decreed that our fortunes would be closely linked.
Ambrose became involved in my affairs as he did with several other sporting personalities, including Terry Marsh, a mutual friend. Terry had also been managed by Frank Warren and had stayed with me in Miami prior to his arrest for the attempted murder of Frank. He was acquitted at the Old Bailey.
All of us — Frank, Ambrose and I — each had strong wills of our own. With that combination, life was never guaranteed to run smoothly. Frank was from Islington, north London. His dad was a bookie and the family branched out into entertainment. They sold juke boxes, pinball tables and cigarette machines to pubs.
Frank had left school at 15 and had been a salesman and meat porter before becoming involved in
the leisure business. While I had once fought as a prize fighter, through his contacts in pubs Frank began staging fights. They were unlicensed by the British Boxing Board of Control, but licensed by the NBCL, and promoting them fired his entrepreneurial spirit. Eventually, it led to his manager’s licence, after a battle with the boxing establishment. Most of the London venues and boxers were dealt with by Mickey Duff, Terry Lawless, Jarvis Astaire and Harry Levine but Frank broke in.
He then got a promoter’s licence and was on his way to becoming one of the most powerful men in boxing in the UK.
Frank is a man who likes nothing better than making deals. Occasionally, we would socialise in clubs. Frank had quite a lot of style. However, Frank’s worst moment came on a cold November evening in 1989 when he stepped out of his chauffeur-driven Bentley which had brought him to a boxing match in Barking. He was shot with a 9mm bullet fired from an automatic Luger pistol, which nearly cost him his life. The bullet missed his heart by an inch, and the others that followed took away part of his lung. To top it all, surgeons then discovered that they would also have to remove a benign thyroid tumour. He lost a lot of weight in hospital which he put down to ‘lead plan diet’. He always had a good sense of humour. Mickey Duff later quipped that Frank had learned many lessons in life: ‘One of them is to duck.’
I always admire people who get up and go and Frank did just that. After the shooting his business empire was in trouble. But Frank is back today and has joined forces with Don King who is probably the richest fight promoter in the world, worth about £500 million.
Ambrose was Mr Charm. He was full of charisma and hype and had everyone intrigued with stories about himself. Apart from running his company, World Sports Corporation, from plush offices near Tower Bridge, he was also trade development counsellor for the West African state of Guinea-Bissau. He once told a court his business was ‘hype’. He said, ‘If we are promoting an event, we are responsible for the hype. We are in the business of PR and creating press relations and secreting information to the press, especially the tabloid press. So that if you see a world exclusive, we would have been responsible for passing the information to the journalists. We have to develop as much hype as possible so that there is a clamour for tickets. Hype moves at a pace. Yesterday’s news is yesterday’s blues.’
From growing up in Hackney and running a stall in Islington selling children’s clothes (that’s where he met Frank Warren), Ambrose was now involved with some really big sporting personalities. They included my cousin Paul Ince, John Fashanu, Linford Christie, Ellery Hartley and Terry Marsh. He always has interesting observations to make. ‘Charisma is a way, not a play. You can’t rent charisma by the day.’
While other people might shoot from the hip, Ambrose shot from the mouth. He would fire off about anything and make it seem funny. He told one interviewer, ‘It’s a dog-eat-dog, bullshit society. So you’ve got to take as much as you can for as little as you can fairly give. Fairly is the operative word. I don’t have a contract with anyone I represent. It’s all done on a handshake. If they want to walk away, they walk.’
Ambrose was an educated man. He was the fourth of eleven children and left school with three A-levels. His further education was in prison. At the age of 22 he was sent inside for six years. In four years he was moved around 21 prisons but made good use of his time studying finance and marketing. I was totally impressed with the quotes and sayings he would come out with.
With these two people in the background, I continued my run of successes in the ring. My first fight in 1988 was against Fermin Chirinos at Bethnal Green on 27 January. He was from Venezuela and a good old warhorse. I sparked him in two.
Just ten days later, I had to fight Canadian Byron Prince at Stafford on 7 February. It was at Tony Sibson’s challenge for Frank Tate’s IBF title at Bingley Hall. Although I won my bout, I didn’t see the title fight because CS gas was squirted in my and Sean Lynch’s face as we were walking back to the ring after my victory.
John, my brother, was there as well but he didn’t get hurt. One side of Sean’s face was burnt and I began vomiting and was rushed to hospital. Police thought the problems involved Sibson supporters in Leicester and my supporters in London but John said the Leicester crowd were trying to get revenge on London lads whom they wrongly thought had been our supporters. He said stewards had to separate the warring factions and that the Leicester mob had got a kicking after Tony Sibson beat Mark Kaylor in London.
Prince was big and tough, but there was no way the Dark Destroyer was going to be scared of him. I never had any fear of my opponents. I was nervous but never afraid. I don’t think fear is an emotion I will ever feel again after serving in Northern Ireland. When I got out there, it seemed more like he was slapping me than punching me before I KO’d him on his feet.
Nearly three weeks later, on 24 February, I fought Greg Taylor at Aberfan in Wales. He was an American who really fancied himself. I split both of his eyelids and blood was gushing out. He was bashed from pillar to post. I still remember him exclaiming, ‘Goddamn!’ when the referee stopped the fight after one minute in the second round. Even though blood was flowing from his nose and eyes, he didn’t want to stop. He was bad-mouthing me and needling me before the start, trying to wind me up. That got me in the right frame of mind, especially when he kept saying, ‘You’re gonna go.’ I was determined to make him pay.
On 14 March I had another easy victory at Norwich, fighting Darren Hobson from Leeds. He was a good, average fighter who thought he was the next Nigel Benn. Do me a favour! He brought his amateur style into professional ranks and was out in the first round — history. I wanted a real fight. ‘Come on, Frank,’ I said, ‘give me a fight!’
I didn’t have long to wait. Warren arranged for me to fight Ghanian Abdul Umaru Sanda for the vacant Commonwealth middleweight title at Muswell Hill on 20 April. I thought I would have to work hard here. Sanda was big, tall and gangly but I had good support down there.
‘Go for your dreams,’ I thought to myself. I felt confident and did a lot of bobbing and swaying to make him miss me. He had lots of experience and I thought I would just have to cut him down. I was bashing his body and giving it to him left and right. I was having a field day. The ref was telling me to calm down. I bashed Sanda over in the first round and did him in the second. I went steaming in.
The ref was pulling me back and, at one stage, had hold of both my arms behind my back. At the end of the fight, I dropped to my knees and shouted a victory cry. It was my moment of glory although, afterwards, I was criticised by Les McCarthy, Burt’s brother, who objected to my antics. I resented his intrusion. He wouldn’t have got in the ring and fought like I did. I deserved that.
Muhammad Ali went berserk when he beat Liston and Sugar Ray Leonard did exactly as I did after he beat Marvin Hagler. I’d just hammered a fighter who had never been stopped and won my first title. Nobody’s going to tell me I can’t celebrate a little.
My fight against American loud-mouth Tim Williams was to be my last with Frank Warren as my manager. It was arranged for 28 May at the Albert Hall. Williams, who had drawn with Marvin Hagler’s half-brother Robbie Sims, looked like an elf. He was ugly as sin but with a good body and physique. He was mouthing me off like nothing on earth but then I always welcomed that because I could go ahead and kick ass badly. He had a good reputation in America and was rated as the 27th best middleweight in the world.
It took him four minutes to go down.
My reputation had reached new heights by this time. I was on a high, and everyone was predicting that I was seriously going places in the world of professional boxing. I’d won my first title, I was unbeaten, and I was getting nearer to my goal of being a world champion.
Flushed with victory, I had to make a decision whether to stay with Frank or go with Ambrose. As far as Frank was concerned, I felt I had more than given myself to his cause. Frank had arranged for me to fight American Eddie Hall at Luton Town Football Club on 25 June on the sam
e bill as Barry McGuigan. I walked out on him 48 hours before I was due to appear. I had a different battle on my hands now.
9
SVENGALI
My boxing career really took off with Ambrose Mendy. At the time, he was the best thing for me. Ambrose was more than my mentor. He took the place of Andy, the older brother I loved and missed so much. He was charismatic and intelligent. He was my very own Milk Tray man with all the mystery, intrigue and looks of James Bond 007.
I loved him more than any other person. At the time, he was as important to me as Sharron. That is why, when it all went sour a few years later, I was deeply hurt and would never have another manager. When Sharron and I married, he was my best man. I modelled myself so much on Ambrose. He looked good. He was an attractive, well-manicured man about ten years older than me, who looked as if he’d never done a day’s work in his life and had loads of front. From the way he spoke, you would have thought he had a posh education but I know he’d improved himself in prison.
Although he came from the street, he had the charm and class of a gentleman. But he did it without looking tacky and I learned a lot from him. Ambrose conducted business with flair. Admittedly he would sometimes be on another planet or in cloud cuckoo land but then he was also the sort of person who could make you believe that day was night.
He was the Don King of Britain. He had everything and I ended up loving him like a brother. Dad was not so ready to accept him, though. He warned me off him and told me not to trust Mendy. He was right, but I only found that out much later.
Ambrose liked doing things in style. He gave me lots of incentive and ideas. We did everything together and I tried to emulate his lifestyle. ‘If you’ve got it, flaunt it’ was the message. At his persuasion, I bought a Porsche on hire purchase. It cost me £4,000 a month! He made me live big but that never did me any harm. It helped me to think in telephone numbers when negotiating the purse for a fight. He showed me where I was going and I always thought that if I had a problem, Ambrose would be there to sort it out. And he was. He could be relied on to be there for me whenever I needed him.
