Nigel Benn

by Nigel Benn

  So now I looked the part — wicked apartment, flash car. On one occasion, I was driving it along the marina, and this police car pulled up beside me. The cop inside called out ‘Hey, you’re the boxer, right?’ We were doing about 5 mph as he drove alongside me, and carried on chatting. In the meantime, a huge queue of traffic is building up, all crawling along behind us. The cop didn’t give a shit.

  They were like that, the cops in LA. I was once caught doing 120 mph on the way to San Francisco, when I was stopped by the police. But instead of booking me, the guy asked for an autograph for his son! My face was beginning to be recognised around the place. On one occasion, I was sitting in a café when this cop comes up to me and asks for my number and suggests we go out partying some time!

  Everything about life in LA was good, and I had every reason to be completely happy. But I was far from it. I was going through some terrible problems at the time, because I couldn’t cope with not having my kids living with me, not being able to see them. I was completely messed up, as low as I’d ever been. I’ll never, ever be as low again as I was then. It was so traumatic. I was out in LA with Carolyne, whom I loved dearly and passionately, but I was still obsessed with Sharron, because if I had Sharron with me, then I’d have had my kids, too. I couldn’t work out how I was going to deal with it.

  The pain I was going through was indescribable. It was emotional pain, but it was very real, worse than any physical pain I’d ever experienced in the ring. It was gut-wrenching, my stomach was all tied up in knots, I couldn’t focus or concentrate on anything. I lost count of the number of times I just broke down in uncontrollable floods of tears. I loved Carolyne so deeply, but my feelings were just ripping me apart, and I was causing her and myself so much hurt. The whole thing gnawed away at me, and I was so confused I didn’t know what I was doing. I felt as though my heart was split in two, and I just couldn’t deal with it. One moment I thought one thing, the next moment I thought another.

  My mind turned to the darkest thoughts imaginable, and I started contemplating terrible things. I found myself wondering whether my life was worth all the excruciating pain I was suffering. Everything seemed worthless — the money, the fame, the success. I even thought about taking my own life. It seemed like an easy way out, an easy way to escape from the despair and frustration that I felt in every cell of my body. From the outside, my life may have seemed perfect; on the inside, I was weeping like a small child. What would I have done if I hadn’t had Carolyne there to give me the love and support that I needed? I don’t even want to think about it.

  Carolyne and I were at loggerheads. We knew we couldn’t go on like this. One day we were sitting down talking about it, and Carolyne just said, ‘Nigel, you’ve tried everything — maybe you should just get hypnotised!’

  We both laughed, but after a few seconds we looked at each other, and I thought, Hmm, maybe that’s not such a crazy idea. And that’s how it happened. I decided to try hypnosis to sort out my problems. It shows what a bad state I was in, because before that I’d never believed in hypnotism. Nobody’s going to make me eat onion and tell me it’s a fucking apple, do you know what I mean? And what if somebody puts me under and says, ‘Nigel, put all your money into my account!’ But I wanted it badly, and if anyone was going to hypnotise me, then I’d go to the best, so I called my agent and told him to get me an appointment with Paul McKenna.

  We flew over from LA specially to see him in his offices in Kensington. Now, Paul McKenna had seen Nigel Benn whoop ass, so I don’t know what he was expecting. He must have been a bit surprised, though, when he saw the state I was in when I walked into his office. I shook his hand, and said ‘Paul, you gotta help me,’ and then I just broke down in tears. I was a complete mess.

  Paul must have been thinking, Christ, a few months ago I saw this man on telly knocking the shit out of some guy, and now he’s a dribbling mess in my office! I was in such a state. But he put me under, and I can only remember a few details: Peter Pan’s holding my hand, and I’m flying through the clouds. All I can hear are whale noises in the sea, and it’s all so calm.

  Afterwards, I tried to remember what he’d said to me, but I couldn’t remember a single thing — I suppose I was just trying to put Sharron out of my mind.

  When I woke up, Carolyne was there and she was in tears, complete floods of tears. I couldn’t remember a thing, but she must have heard all the traumatic stuff I was coming out with. But you know, I wanted to be healed so badly that when I woke up I was a different man. Paul McKenna had helped me put the past behind me, and for that I want to thank him.

  Afterwards, loads of people were saying that I’d gone to see Paul to help with my fighting. Complete bollocks! I don’t need help like that from anyone when it comes to what goes on inside the ring. If a man has two arms, two legs and a heart like me, then I can deal with that. But when you break up with a woman, the mother of your kids — the pain is like nothing on earth. The knife’s already in, and they can just turn it inch by inch. I don’t care how hard you are, but when a woman starts twisting that knife, then the pain is unbearable. I’ll go and fight Mike Tyson all day long, he could fuck me up, and I wouldn’t care. You could get your ass beaten by Tyson — and you’re still £5 million richer! So what? That kind of pain goes, you get compensated. But the pain a woman inflicts on you lingers for years.

  McKenna healed that pain for me. I never had to go back, because he’d done what he had to do. And when I thanked him after the fight with McClellan, I was thanking him for putting my life back on course. I’ll never get that low again.

  Now, though, I was in the right frame of mind to start concentrating on the important business of my career. I was meant to fight Michael Nunn, but I was told, ‘OK, Nigel, fight Michael Nunn. But it’s an easy fight — you’ll have to take £100,000 less.’

  Excuse me? I’m the world champion, and they want me to take £100,000 less? I told them just what I was thinking — bollocks to that!

  So they said to me, ‘You don’t fight Michael Nunn, but then you fight Gerald McClellan — a mini-Mike Tyson.’

  ‘I don’t give a fuck,’ I told them. ‘Bring him on! Bring him on, Don!’ I don’t know if I was supposed to be scared, but it just made me more determined than ever. It got my goat, and I just didn’t want to fight anybody else. I wanted McClellan. Bring him on!

  The hype about McClellan was amazing. He was being described as the most ferocious boxer ever to hit our shores, a freak of nature. Two things were at stake here — big money and my glory. I wanted both desperately, and I spent an intensive eight weeks of rigorous exercise in Tenerife to prepare for it.

  He came over to Britain for the fight, and was giving it large. But by this time, I’d got into my training mode, and for this fight, it was more mental training that I needed. I was like, ‘Right, mate. Don’t think you’re going to come over here and knock me out, not when I’ve got 20 million Brits on my side, supporting me all the way.’ My mental and physical training had gone perfectly, absolutely perfectly. I kept thinking to myself, Have I missed anything, what have I missed? But I’d missed nothing. The running and the sparring had been bang on — not too much, because I’m not one of those guys who likes getting all bashed up sparring only to leave it all in the gym. Food, vitamins, sleep — bang on. I’d done everything.

  I kept a low profile, and stayed totally focused on the job ahead of me. To my mind, McClellan was nothing more than an obstacle to me fulfilling my dreams. He was stopping my family from having the best things I could give them. He had to be removed.

  When we met at the press conference, I just looked him straight in the eye; I’m ready for you, mate. I felt hard as nails, and no Yank was coming over to beat me on my home ground.

  All the papers had me to lose. None of them had backed me to go past three rounds, except the Star. I didn’t read them before the fight, but I read them all afterwards, so I knew who’d been predicting what. Not one of them said, ‘Let’s get behind our b
oy, let’s give him the support he needs.’

  But I had my support from Carolyne. When the white stretch limo arrived to pick me up for the fight, she didn’t come outside to see me off. We’d kissed indoors and said how much we loved each other and I knew she was trying to hide her anxiety. I also knew she’d be there in the crowd at the fight. She didn’t wish me luck. She knew I didn’t need it.

  As the limo neared the stadium, I felt like Spartacus going to the arena to fight to the death. The adrenalin was pumping hard, so hard I swear I could hear it. My blood was boiling and I was ready to swing some punches.

  When I entered the ring that night, the atmosphere was electric. I looked across at McClellan and thought, ‘Yeah, the arms don’t look too bad, legs are skinny.’ The noise from the crowd was like nothing I’d heard before, and all the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. They booed McClellan, and they cheered me — 12,000 Brits right behind me. I thought to myself, How the fuck is he going to beat me here? OK, let’s get this fight over with!

  Once the bell goes, though, it’s different. You might have 12,000 people behind you, but at the end of the day it’s you and the other guy, alone in the ring — and neither of you want to give an inch. None of your supporters can help you, but sometimes you can feel them. You can feel their support, and it gives you a kind of strength that you don’t get from anywhere else.

  The round started, and he hit me. Yeah, that’s not too bad, I thought. When he hit me again, though, I felt all the ligaments in the side of my neck rip, and I went out of the ring! Everyone was saying, ‘We told you he’d do it. We told you he’d spark Benn in the first round.’

  They wrote me off after that second punch, but I was like ‘Excuse me! Excuse me! I’m getting up now!’ And that was when I got back in the ring. I just thought, Fuck you, you’re not beating me. I’m not lying down. I don’t care how hard you hit — I’ve been hit with everything, pickaxes, baseball bats, so what? Let me see how you feel when I’m hitting you now.

  But in that first round he carried on battering me around the place, trying to get me to end it.

  When the bell finally sounded, my corner man Dennie Mancini took over the show. He grabbed me and said, ‘Fucking hell, Nigel, you’ve really got him in trouble, mate!’

  But I’m bashed to pieces! What’s he talking about, I’ve got him in trouble? When I heard what Dennie said, though, it turned it all around for me.

  ‘Really? Yeah, too right, Den, he is in trouble.’ That was just what I needed to pick me up. If I’d had some guy in the corner saying, ‘Look, Nige, you’re taking a battering here,’ then my morale’s going to plummet. But thanks to Dennie, I went into the second round feeling like a champion, and now it’s me bashing him around, me making him run. Bang! Come on, mate, I don’t care what you throw at me.

  By this time, my morale’s high. I remember in the third round, though, he hit me with a body shot like I’d never felt before. If he’d done that again I’d have gone down, it hurt so much. But after I took that punch, I walked forward to show him ‘Yeah, come on, then.’ Really, I’m thinking, Please, don’t hit me like that again! And he didn’t, which gave me my energy back, and the ability to continue.

  Round four, and his gumshield’s hanging out of his mouth; he’s exhausted. But I’m ready to go on. In round six, I sent his gumshield flying from his mouth, and it was clear I’d won the mental battle when, at the start of the seventh, McClellan stood up from his stool really slowly — he was tired. Even in round eight, when he put me down, I got straight back up and gave him a right uppercut and a left hook, and I said to him, ‘When you come up for round fucking nine, there’s going to be more of that.’ We went back to our corners and whose heart’s broken, his or mine?

  When he went down in round ten, he’d taken two right-handers. I had a left hook ready but he was already on the floor — and he wasn’t getting up. The whole place went wild and the noise was something else; the roof just came off. Gerald McClellan, pound for pound the hardest puncher in the world, the Yank who’d beaten Roy Jones as an amateur, was on the floor, and what made me proudest of all was this: it was a British man who’d done it, on his own turf.

  I’d done it, and I felt good. Outside the ring, a TV interviewer came up to me, but I grabbed the microphone and spoke my mind.

  ‘They just brought him over here to bash me up. Now I’m the man! Look at him now!’

  By this time, though, I’m all bashed up myself, and everyone’s coming up to me, patting me on the back. I couldn’t take any more and I just blacked out and collapsed.

  When I woke up I was in hospital in so much pain, with Carolyne beside me, crying her eyes out. Gerald McClellan was in the same hospital, so I went in to see him. If I thought I was in a bad state — I had a fractured nose and jaw, my kidneys were so damaged I was passing blood, and I had a shadow on the brain — then McClellan was twice as bad. He wasn’t even awake. I went over to his bed, where I took his hand, kissed it, and simply said ‘Sorry.’

  When I got home, I had a couple of friends with me and they put me in the bath. I lay there for two hours, unable to move. I couldn’t even get out by myself, so at about 4.00am, I had to call the guys and they lifted me out. When you’re in that sort of state, snaking from pain as though you’re going through cold turkey, you have to start wondering how much more you can take, how much more you can allow your body to be damaged to that extent. I’d always wanted my own little Rocky fight, and that had been it — blood and guts, excitement. But I’d never been hit like that before. I couldn’t even eat, my mouth was so battered. My tongue was split right down both sides, and Carolyne had to try and feed me with just rice, but I couldn’t even manage that. While my family were tucking into a roast dinner the next day, all I could manage was soup.

  Up until that fight, my little daughter Sadé thought that my fights were staged, a bit like WWF wrestling. It was Carolyne who had had to tell her the truth about what her daddy did for a living.

  ‘This is serious, Sadé,’ she said to her.

  ‘Can the same thing happen to Daddy that happened to Michael Watson?’ Sadé asked innocently.

  ‘Of course it can.’

  After that conversation she came up to me and pleaded, ‘Do you know what I really, really want, Daddy? More than anything?’

  ‘What do you want, Darling?’

  ‘I want you to stop fighting.’

  I had a big lump in my throat when she said that to me, and that one simple request changed my life for ever. The fight game just wasn’t the same any more.

  18

  WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE …

  After McClellan, I started thinking seriously about retiring. I’d always known the risks of getting into the ring with men like that, and so had he, but that fight really brought it home to me. It brought it home to my family, too. My kids started begging me to stop fighting, and so did Carolyne. I started to realise that every time I took a battering, so did they. I wanted out.

  But that didn’t mean I was going to take anything lying down, and although I was sorry for what had happened to McClellan, I thought his family were well out of order in the way they had behaved after the fight. In the pre-fight build-up, you should have heard the things they were saying about me — they wanted me dead. After the fight, though, it was a different matter.

  ‘We wanted Benn dead, now we want his money.’

  They wanted compensation from me for what happened to McClellan in the ring, but they were still bad-mouthing me.

  If they want money, they can go to Don King — he’s the man with the big bucks, he’s the man who brought McClellan over to bash me up. I’m just trying to make an honest living to support my kids, and if they think I’m going to part with my money after hearing what they said about me — no way. I know for a fact that if I was in McClellan’s shoes, my dad would handle it with some self-respect. Sure, he’d be upset, but he’d say, ‘It happens. You’re over 21. You knew what you were up against.’
He wouldn’t take it out on the other guy’s family, and he wouldn’t slag anybody off.

  Although I was beginning to think about leaving the world of boxing behind me, I was still committed to a few more fights. The first was against the Italian Vincenzo Nardiello in July. The ironic thing was that in the match before us, Orlin Norris received the same treatment that McClellan had had from me.

  When I got into the ring, though, it was business as usual. Nardiello was complaining about a slippery canvas, but I just kept quite about it — I wanted him to have a much closer view of that slippery canvas than I would! He gave me eight easy rounds before his corner threw in the white towel. To be honest, though, it wasn’t my best performance. I remember saying at the time, ‘Everybody deserves a bad day at the office, and that was mine!’

  I stopped Danny Perez in the seventh on 2 September 1995. I didn’t know it at the time, but that was to be my last victory. My belt was taken from me exactly six months later by Sugarboy Malinga on 2 March 1996. I’d trained so hard for that fight, but I don’t know what happened to my performance. Perhaps I just left it all in the gym, or perhaps Malinga was just the kind of fighter who’d beat me all year round, the kind of player I couldn’t deal with — I don’t know. When I put him down in round five, I was just knackered. He wasn’t in McClellan’s class, and I thought I’d be in for an easy night of it. The hardest punch I’d ever felt was when Malinga hit me in the mouth. My teeth went through my gumshield and I actually felt them go through my tongue. I’ve still got the scar. Usually, you don’t feel much until after the fight, but I felt that punch all right.

  Looking back, I guess I just had nothing left. I was on my way down, but at the time you don’t realise that. I just wanted to have a big fight, to show that I still had it, but when it came to the night I didn’t even have the adrenalin rush I’d need to put in a good performance, and in the end he gave me a bashing. I lost on a decision, but still took home a purse of £800,000. The money was incidental, though. I was absolutely gutted, especially losing in front of all the Geordies, whom I love to death. I’d rather have lost to Eubank at Old Trafford than lost to Sugarboy Malinga on that night.