by Nigel Benn
The stardom and fame had happened too quickly. It was time to get off the merry-go-round. Vic Andreeti got down to business immediately and all the big boys came down to Miami. I liked the way they did business out there. They didn’t recognise defeat. No Eddie the Eagles were permitted to crash-land here. They wanted winners.
I rented an apartment in Collins Avenue on Miami Beach. It was millionaire’s row. Behind me was Julio Iglesias’ house and nearby Gloria Estefan’s sprawling manor which made my place look like a cardboard box. An English couple I got to know out there, Pat and Pete, befriended me and looked after me over the three years I was there. When I moved into the Carnage Club, a very classy place with lots of wealthy tenants, a Jewish lady asked me to carry her bags from her car. I had to explain to her politely that I was not a porter. I would still turn heads in Miami. Not because they recognised me as a boxer but because I looked the part in my Armani suits and designer clothes and Americans appreciated that.
Although I had the best of intentions when I told the British press I would be living the life of a monk out there, I wasn’t lonely for too long after my arrival and my prediction of a quiet life was a little wide of the mark. My mate Rolex Ray unexpectedly turned up. He’d had a few problems in England and went to live in Spain for a couple of months. While there he met up with The Who and accompanied them to Miami for a concert. He phoned Sharron in London to ask about me and was told I was in Miami. By coincidence, he could see my hotel from his and, within ten minutes of calling Sharron, he was in my room. We ended up staying together for a while until Ray got his own apartment. Ray joined me in some of my training sessions and he and I would go for early morning runs along the beach.
Running before dawn involved some risk. Helicopters would come zooming down, training their spotlights on us to identify who we were. There was so much drug smuggling along that section of beach that everyone was a suspect until they got to know you. One of our friends once found a load of drugs washed up on the sand and, thereafter, would organise his runs according to the time of the tides.
I was training really hard, at least three times a day. The morning runs would be about five to six miles along South Beach. Ray would do about four miles and then we’d go to the gym at lunchtime. At about five or six in the evening, we’d go to the health club at the Hilton.
Afterwards, we’d wine and dine at the top restaurants and clubs. There was a very good club scene in Miami and we took full advantage of it. When Ray came over with The Who, we took John Entwhistle to Stringfellows where I met a beautiful waitress called Lois Harrington. Later, she sold her story to the press and told them I’d eaten strawberries and cream off sensitive parts of her body. As a result, boxing writer Colin Hart delivered some strawberries and cream just before my comeback fight against Jorge Amparo in Atlantic City on 20 October, and said he believed it was a necessary part of my training and diet!
Apart from Ray staying with me for a while, Terry Marsh also came over before he was arrested on suspicion of shooting Frank Warren, and the three of us shared the same flat for a while. In fact, when Terry and I flew back together to England, he was arrested after going through Customs. I’d been with him and one moment he was there, the next he’d gone. I didn’t know what had happened. I thought he’d been hauled off by Customs over his duty-free allowances.
Terry was a laugh-a-minute while he was in America. When we went to Atlantic City he had everyone in fits of laughter with his antics. Once, Ambrose bought us (with my money!) ski-type all-in-one striped suits. They were in matching colours and we had just arrived at the airport and were waiting for our luggage when Terry went missing. The rest of us — Ambrose, Ray, Vic Andreeti and I —looked everywhere for him without success. All of a sudden, we saw this figure wearing the same suit as us, curled up on the luggage carousel. It was Terry. He’d rolled himself into a ball, pulled up the hood on his ski suit and was going round and round with the luggage. He kept his head down and looked just like a package. It was the funniest thing you’d ever seen. But apart from getting up to tricks like this, he was very much a loner.
America was a crazy place. Once, in Las Vegas, we saw one lady who acted as a pimp for her daughter. The girl was only about 16 but very pretty and the mother tried to pair her up with me thinking she might get a few bob out of it.
On another night in Vegas, we met Tyson. I was with Ray and Ambrose in a black club. Tyson was sitting alone but recognised me from the television. Ray asked him if he could have a photograph taken with him and he declined saying he didn’t have photos done with white guys. ‘They’re pussies,’ he told him. Ray said he ought to feel his stomach before making statements like that. He took it as an invitation to test his muscles and hit him. I think it really hurt but he was only playing around.
We saw him later with six or seven girls and, judging from the way he was carrying on with them, it seemed clear that if Tyson were to ask anyone back with him they would know without any doubt what was going to happen. Every woman who comes up and asks for a kiss or autograph gets asked if he can touch her pussy. He would grab every girl within reaching distance. We had a good laugh with him but he is so powerful and intimidating.
While in Miami, I met a dancer who was with an all-girl group. She was really sexy and the first time I made love to her I thought I was going to die. It was explosive! We walked along the beach talking about all the sexy things she would like to do. I said, ‘Here’s your man!’ That was it. She began taking off all my clothes and wouldn’t let me do a thing. She was an older woman with a beautiful body. We made love on the sand but were taking a hell of a risk because if the police had seen my black ass bobbing up and down they’d have arrested us.
On one of my trips back to London from Miami I chatted up an air stewardess and we tried to make love on the seat of the aircraft. Her boyfriend, a steward, found out and threatened to do me when we landed.
Ambrose and Ray got on well but were never great buddies. Ray knew Ambrose from Jody’s, a club in Spitalfields Market, east London, where he said a lot of trendy villains would go. The doorman, Roy Shaw, a bare-knuckle fighter, was one of the toughest bouncers in London. Ray was about 18 at the time and Ambrose was about to go to prison for fraud, where he shared a cell with a good friend of Ray’s.
While Ray thought Ambrose was clever and impressive, he was not too keen on his methods. He warned me, ‘Ambrose was always around black sportsmen. He had lots of charisma, talked well and got into their family, becoming godfather to the children. By the time they got wise to him, it was often too late.’
In spite of my nights out, I trained with a new zeal and dedication. Vic Andreeti had calmed me down in the ring and showed me how to feel my way with a jab and to defend myself properly. He said I was ‘… all crash, bang, wallop, but he’s listening and showing me an absolutely lovely left jab’. At the same time Ambrose and I had talks with Bob Arum in New York, who was interested in signing me up for a fight deal. Arum said he had watched me fight Watson on TV and thought I was the most exciting middleweight he’d seen in years. He wanted to feature me on the undercard at a coming fight in Las Vegas between Sugar Ray Leonard and Roberto Duran. We signed a two-fight deal with Top Rank, Bob’s promotion company, on 29 August. I was on trial. If I did well in the two fights, I would be in line to fight a world title. If I lost, I’d be finished.
My début fight in America was to be against Jorge Amparo at the International Hotel in Atlantic City on 20 October 1989. Amparo, a 35-year-old veteran, had been the distance with four world champions and had never been on the floor. Shortly before the fight, panic set in. I had a health scare and was losing up to ten pounds in every training session. After extensive medical tests, I was told that my training had been too intensive and that I had sapped my body fat to dangerously low levels. Vic kept telling me to take it easy in the amount of training I was doing but I wouldn’t let up. The doctor told me that if I went into the ring in this state, I was risking serious injury and e
ven putting my life at risk. The doctors at Miami Sports Clinic told me to rest and fill myself with carbohydrates, which did the trick and got me back into A1 condition.
Sparring with top-class fighters had also done wonders for my confidence. In three months I had learned more than in the previous three years. Freddie Pendleton, a world-class boxer, taught me to stay cool and pick my punches. I also learned to pace myself and not go hell for leather like I did against Watson. I used to go out and try to blow away my opponent and wouldn’t listen to a word anyone said before the next round when I would carry on in exactly the same way. That had all changed.
In the three months I was away, I was missing my family and Sharron and the kids terribly and made up my mind to return to England immediately after my fight. During my absence I had spent thousands of dollars on phonecalls to Sharron and had even considered marriage to her the following year, but right now the most important thing was to win.
When they put me in the ring with Jorge, I took one look at him and thought they’d put me in the ring with an animal. He was tough. No boy this one. He was a grown man. This guy had fought with the top men — the real McCoy. I instantly realised that winning this fight was going to be worth all my previous victories put together. It’s not until you step into the ring with fighters like Amparo that you find out how good you are. And especially for me, because I knew that if I lost this fight I was finished. I was more scared of losing than of anything else.
In the first round I was banging away, but I knew I had to be careful not to tire myself out. I had to make a good impression, so I was jabbing and hitting, but my hand kept bouncing of his head. At one point, I flung myself back on the ropes, and then threw myself forward, punching him in the head. I hit him so hard I thought he would be out cold. It felt like my hand had shattered, but the guy just shook his head and took it.
The fight went the full ten rounds, and I got a conclusive win on points. Afterwards, I remember crying with relief. This win meant I had my foothold in America, but it also made me realise I had a lot to learn. If I’d had that fight a year earlier, I’d have been knackered after the sixth round. But now the Dark Destroyer was back on the world stage.
After the fight, I returned to England and was back with Sharron. It was great being back with her and Dominic and Sadé. We were one, big happy family, reunited after my absence. After being separated from them for three months, I realised how important it was for me to have the family. But it was also important to be able to provide for Sharron and the kids and that meant concentrating on my next fight.
During my short visit home, I was invited to appear on the Kilroy programme to discuss whether boxing encouraged violence in youngsters. Ironically, Ambrose, who had come to join me, was involved in a scrap outside the BBC’s Lime Grove Studios in west London. His car nearly collided with another vehicle and the two drivers had something to say about it. The police were called but no charges were brought.
I predicted a one-round victory for my second US fight. My opponent was Jose Quinones, a tough Puerto Rican, and our bout was set for 1 December in Las Vegas. I said I would go out and crack him on the chin in the first round. I needed to do something a little dramatic for America to sit up and take notice. Back in Britain, a number of people, including Mickey Duff, were surprised I was taking on someone as tough as Quinones who had KO’d 20 of his 26 wins. I was feeling good, really fit and 100 per cent psyched for a victory. It was going to be a good Christmas.
I knew Quinones was tough. I’d seen him beat Errol Christie, and he’d flattened Doug De Witt. But I was cool about my fight with him, I felt good and relaxed, and I knew I wasn’t going to waste a lot of shots on him. The fight took place at the Hacienda Hotel in Las Vegas.
People started calling me the English Hagler after my fight with Quinones. That was a bit over the top, but it was a good fight for me and I took him out in 170 seconds of the first round. My new fighting style was beginning to show — I just took my time and picked my shots well, using my jabs. When I caught him with an uppercut, I didn’t realise how much I’d hurt him. There were a load of English fans in the audience, though, and when I heard how hard they were cheering, I looked into his eyes and saw they were rolling. Out, mate!
Victory meant that a world title was again within my reach, much closer than I had thought. My promoter Bob Arum wanted me to fight Mike McCallum in England the following February. But there was also a challenge for the new WBO title which Iran Barkley and Doug De Witt were contesting in January. Arum had complete faith in me. He said I was an exception to the usual image Americans had of British fighters. Over there, British boxers were not thought to be much good. I had shown otherwise. He said I could follow Sugar Ray Leonard and Roberto Duran who were the last of the great legends in boxing. I could be his man of the Nineties. He made me feel good.
After the fight, I had planned to return immediately to England but stayed on a few days in Las Vegas for the Sugar Ray Leonard-Roberto Duran fight. I wished I had come home earlier. Along with others, I left disgusted after the eleventh round. It was pathetic. Leonard held on to his WBC world super-middleweight title against Duran and I never felt so let down. That was the biggest disappointment for me. I’d been looking forward to the fight all week and it turned out to be boring rubbish.
Given the opportunity, I would have got in the ring with either of them. Duran put up a pathetic fight. He used to be a god among fighters, the most ferocious of them all. What a let down. I wanted it to be a proud moment in boxing. I was all keyed up and sitting with my idol Mike Tyson and showbusiness celebrities like Michael Jackson. I’d even bought a special suit and was looking really smart. But I might have as well come in a tracksuit and trainers. It taught me one thing — you have to know when to quit.
13
WORLD CHAMPION
We called the Billionaire Boys Club the BBC. It was my idea to start this small and exclusive club with about five or six pals, all of whom had deep pockets and long arms and liked enjoying themselves. It is still going today although some of the faces have changed. Of the original club members, two of them are doing very long prison sentences, including 14 years for armed robbery, one is dead and another went off his head.
There are five of us now — Rolex Ray; Chris, a diamond broker; Geoff; Albert, a Chechen who lives in Moscow and was Soviet light-heavyweight boxing champion; and me.
We live life to the full, have been known to take over front-row seats at events and always insist on the best tables at clubs and restaurants. We drive the biggest cars and live like pop stars, or possibly even better, because we have the good fortune to conduct most of our activities with a degree of anonymity and so rarely get reported.
One of the boys once booked a yacht for the weekend for £12,000 and then flew us out to its Mediterranean berth by aeroplane. Once there, he ferried in some lady friends by helicopter and we enjoyed a millionaire’s break. When the good times rolled, they really rolled. We once had a stretch limousine to take us partying to the Barbican Hotel and spent three days and three nights there with an unlimited supply of vintage champagne and classy ladies.
We always did things in style, no matter what our circumstances might have been at the time. Albert, who lives in Moscow, was brought over to Canada to box after becoming Soviet champion. He was only about 21 at the time and, when we met, he was with a group of Russian boxers in Miami who weren’t getting much money while training for fights. Ray took Albert under his wing and became his manager. We called Albert ‘Gucci man’ because he was given $100 subsistence which was meant to last him one month and he spent it all on the first day on a $100 Gucci shirt.
He was a good fighter but, after the break-up of the Soviet Union, he returned to Grozny on the Caspian Sea. His father was an influential businessman and friend of the President. The next we heard of Albert was that he was living in Moscow and had two Mercedes 500SL convertibles and was worth pots of money. He’d made it big in banking and didn’t both
er returning to his architectural studies at a famous Moscow college. Since we became friends, he comes to all my fights and after-fight parties. The Chechens would like him to return home and become mayor of Grozny but he is presently recovering from some bullet wounds that he sustained while on a home visit.
Like the others, he has a great sense of humour, loves dance, techno and garage music and is a hit with the ladies. Once, he spent £40,000 in two days while courting a beautiful Israeli girl who works for a top jeweller. He and Ray met her in Stringfellow’s where she was a bit stand-offish at first, but she soon became very much friendlier. Not so long ago, Albert brought over one of his Chechen friends and his five-year-old son. They went shopping in Harrods and Ray offered to buy the little boy a toy machine-gun. The lad cast it aside with contempt and his father had to explain to Ray that, back home, he owned a real machine-gun. Albert always said he loved the circus and pageantry involved in boxing as much as the sport itself. We trained together in Miami and he never forgot Ray’s generosity to him.
I returned to London after my second victory to spend Christmas at home with Sharron and the children. It was great to see them all and one of the first things I did was to go on a shopping spree for some clothes. I spent £25,000 in less than half an hour. I wanted to look the part when I returned to America for my next fight against Sanderline Williams who’d been substituted for Michael Olajide at Atlantic City on 14 January. That fight was going to be one of my most important because a win would get me a chance at a title match.
All the boxers and stars I had met in the States dressed beautifully and I wasn’t going to be outdone by them. I bought 20 suits, 30 pairs of shoes and 40 shirts as well as ties and belts. I could afford the money because I’d just signed a fresh five-fight deal with Bob Arum for £1.25 million.
