It’s been more than three decades since Nigel Benn saw his name up in lights in Las Vegas. This week, he has seen his son, Conor, repeat that feat ahead of his WBC welterweight title challenge of Ryan Garcia.
“I think I’m just going to take a picture of it, frame it, put it up on the wall… WBC champion,” Nigel said, asked how it would feel to see his son’s likeness in Sin City.
“You know what I mean? That’s it really, knowing that my son’s made it, to have his name up in lights like I did in Vegas. How good is that? And fighting out at the T-Mobile, brilliant, brilliant.”
Benn had some big fights against some top Americans, including Doug DeWitt, Iran Barkley, and Gerald McClellan, who travelled to London to face the Essex warrior in a tragic fight that McClellan never fully recovered from. Benn had five consecutive US bouts between 1989 and 1990, having lost to the brilliant Michael Watson before he returned to England for his historic fight against Chris Eubank.
He has been in Los Angeles in camp with Conor before they arrived in Sin City this week, and just three months ago, Benn was in the sleepy town of Canastota in upstate New York to be inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
Benn is a very fit 62 years old. He won 42 times as a pro, lost five and had one draw – which came in the Eubank return.
One of his big wins came in Vegas, 36 years ago last month, when he destroyed Iran Barkley in a roughhouse one-round blitz.
Benn remembers mauling the New Yorker well.
“I didn’t actually want the three-knockdown rule,” he said. “Because I know for a fact I would really have ironed him out. I knew that. I think we were fighting in eight-ounce gloves. I don’t even think there were 10-ounce gloves then, they were little small gloves and I mean, I was hitting him hard. He hit me but I just knew that I had the strength to stop him. And I would have stopped him. I know I would have stopped him. I really would have stopped him. I didn’t want the three-knockdown rule.”
Benn and Barkley have only crossed paths once since, at a WBC convention, and Barkley has constantly labelled Benn as a dirty fighter.
“He still keeps whinging and all that. I hit when he was on the ground and all things like that,” said Benn.
“Dirty fighter.”
“All that rubbish, you know what I mean? It was the emotion that got me. When he got up, he was okay. It’s just he wasn’t going to beat me, that’s it, so they’ve got to make up some frigging excuse. Americans like doing that when they’re not on top.”
Whatever Benn says, the history books show he took on some audacious challenges. It is his heart, spirit and courage that eventually got him his plaque at the Hall of Fame.
Ironically, the Hall of Fame reached out to me to get in contact with Benn, and he wasn’t having it. He didn’t want anyone to have his number and so told Ed Brophy, via me, to go through his lawyer.
“I’ve heard about being inducted many years ago,” Benn laughed. “I didn’t know if it was real. I just thought ‘Oh no.’ I just thought it might have been a Mickey Mouse company. I really don’t know.”
I’d told Nigel it was legitimate, but he remained suspicious.
“And then, when I found out it was real, me and my wife, we were over there,” he said. “It was a good experience meeting all the ex-world champions, referees, that was really nice. I enjoyed it and it’s like I look at it, it’s the guy from little Ilford, Essex getting inducted to the International Boxing Hall of Fame. It was just amazing, and then you go down and they’re driving cars down these roads in the parade and you’re waving at everybody and the street is all packed with people down there and it’s going on for a couple of miles. It’s just an experience. I was part of that [2026 class] with Antonio Tarver and Triple G [Gennadiy Golovkin], so what a great time to get inducted to the Hall of Fame and Nigel Benn’s in there.”
This year, both Benn and bitter rival Eubank Snr were on the ballot but only Nigel was elected.
Does he think Eubank should follow him in?
“I don’t know, really,” Benn said.
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The relationship between Benn and Eubank is complex at best. They could not be any more different. Benn was a straightforward warrior, no frills. Eubank was the show pony, substance, yes, but style, too.
But Benn’s body of work included top US fighters and that is, he contends, what sets his career apart from Eubank’s.
“I think because I fought everybody,” Benn said. “I didn’t avoid nobody. I went over to America and I fought. I fought all the best, they put their best over here and I fought them all. I didn’t avoid nobody. Anybody that they put in front of me, I came to fight. I didn’t have hand-picked fighters. I fought everybody that come my way, win, lose or draw, fighting Eubank, fighting Watson, fighting Steve [Collins], fighting Gerald McClellan, fighting Iran Barkley, fought Doug DeWitt, Robbie Sims, everybody. Didn’t avoid anybody in my time. Nobody.”
Eubank has often talked about facing less capable fighters to maximise his earning potential. That was not Benn’s attitude.
“No. I didn’t do that,” he added. “I just think fighting the people that the public wanted to see… I didn’t care. I’d fight anybody, whoever they put in front of me. That was my whole attitude. I just wanted to fight. The British public, I know the kind of fights that they like and that was me. Didn’t avoid nobody.”
It was after he was upset by the superb Watson that he travelled to the US to train. Benn went to the gyms and learned what he could from some of the best fighters and coaches and there was a marked difference in gym cultures.
“Yeah, it was different because I actually didn’t really like sparring,” Benn revealed. “But in America, they live for sparring. That’s their life, sparring. I wasn’t like that. All I needed, all I wanted to do was just get my distance. Some fighters, you look at Tommy Hearns, you look at Terry Norris, all of them, they’re all punch drunk because you know what they’d done? They had wars in the gym, left it in the gym. I wasn’t going to be one of them people.”
Benn is in shape today, and he believes the discipline he has has allowed him to keep his health.
“I kept all my faculties intact and I keep training, I train twice a day, every day without fail,” he said. “So I’m always keeping myself active. I’m in good shape.”
Benn was in some brutal fights, but it was never about how he might be remembered. It was about testing himself against the best. His legacy stands there now, but he never considered it at the time.
“Do you know what? You know, at that time, Tris, I wasn’t thinking about legacy,” Benn said.
“I’m just going out there and I’m just going to fight the best Americans that come my way… To Iran Barkley, to Doug DeWitt, to Robbie Sims. I just fought everybody that came my way.
“I didn’t care who they were. America got what? But, you know, I wanted to show them that, you know, that... Because back then, Americans were the best fighters. They had all the gold medallists in the Olympics and everything. I just wanted to fight whoever was around. As you know, I’m against everybody. I’m not going to avoid nobody. And in those days, if you want to be the best, you had to beat the Americans. And that’s what I did. I never lost to an American.”
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It was a different story for Benn in England, where he lost to Watson, once to bitter rival Eubank and twice to Irishman Steve Collins.
Unlike Eubank, Nigel has remained on very good terms with Collins; Steve defeated Benn in the final two fights of the Dark Destroyer’s career.
There is a reverence in his voice when he talks about Collins.
“I think because me and Steve, we know what we have to do,” Benn explained.
“It’s not like the other person [Eubank Snr]… Me and Steve, we can go out, we work together [doing after-dinner speaking], me and Steve. When I come back to England, I’ll be working with Steve and Michael Watson. We have no pressure and no one’s trying to nick the stage, nick the limelight. We all work together. We all know that we all make a living together and we love it. You know, we don’t try and talk about frigging poetry and all that rubbish while we’re talking… while we’re talking about our careers.
“He’ll come out with a poem or something rubbish like that, it kills the atmosphere all the time. But with Steve, we talk, we laugh, we joke, we’ve got time for each other.”
While the bouts involving Eubank Jnr and Conor were sold with the backdrop of spite, both appear to have mildly softened their stances on one another since.
But the fathers’ up-and-down relationship continues as they both mature, and it was the fights between the youngsters that seem to have driven a further wedge between the dads.
Eubank Junior contends he was ill and terribly weight-drained, which resulted in his rematch loss to Conor after he edged their first bout, a war, on points.
“Right, right,” Benn added.
“Let me explain something. How many fights has Eubank fought at middleweight? Most of his career. All of a sudden, he fights a welterweight and then ‘Oh, I’m struggling at the weight’ but all through his career he’s fought at middleweight?
“‘Oh, I’m struggling. I’m going to let people see me sweating.’ Mate, grow up. And then Eubank [Senior] said, ‘Oh look, they’re trying to kill my son.’ Nobody’s going to kill your son. Your son’s like 33 or 34 years old. He knows what he’s doing. He’s fought at middleweight all the time but all of a sudden – and this is what drives me up the wall – Eubank Senior comes in there saying like, ‘Oh, they’re trying to kill my son.’ Nobody’s trying to kill your son. Your son chose to fight because he’s getting paid good and he knows he can make the weight, so that’s whatever he’d done. That was all down to him. Nobody had a gun to his head. That was all his decision. So when you come out with it all, it’s a load of baloney.”
Does that mean that the old opponents are no longer on good terms at all? There had previously been a thaw in their relationship.
“Nothing, we’re just like… we’re as far from the east to the west and the north to the south,” Benn said. “We’re just different people: me and Conor and Chris Eubank Senior and Junior, we’re just different people. Before the fight, at the weigh-in, I went to shake his [Senior’s] hand and he put his arm in my chest and I thought to myself, ‘You got no respect. You ain’t got no class.’ He thinks he’s all class but you know what… I thought, ‘How are you so disrespectful’ and I told him to, ‘F off, don’t come near me.’ That was it. And he was lucky that I didn’t actually put my fist in his face because that was so disrespectful, but I won’t speak to him again anyway. Got nothing to do with him.
“Me and Chris set this platform for them [the sons], we set a platform for them… You know he loves the limelight, but hey, ‘Chris, look what we done.’ It’s sad because of how he’s carrying on. He just wants to be in front of the cameras posing and doing what he normally does. We don’t care. So when he comes out and put his elbow in my chest like that, I thought, ‘Mate, nah.’ He ain’t doing that again to me. I got no time for him. I’ll never work with him again. “We’ll never do a show with him ever again.”
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Benn has been absorbed into Conor’s camp for this fight. He and Tony Sims have been pumping iron at Gold’s Gym where they managed to see Arnold Schwarzenegger working out, but the Austrian icon escaped before doing any pictures with anyone.
But Benn is about peace now. He’s religious, and thrilled that Conor has followed him and has the church as a significant part of his life.
Nigel has suffered openly with depression, but his love for his family is his priority when it comes to enjoying life today.
“My journey is me now spending time now, I’m over the other side of the clock [living in Australia], it’s about me now spending quality time with my wife. That’s all,” Benn said. “All I want to do is travel the world with her now, once Conor’s fight is out of the way, all I’m going to do is dedicate my time to my wife … My little boy Levi, he wants to be a professional footballer. Now I’m going to have to channel my energy into him. He’s 16 now and he’s a good little footballer and I can see God’s hand is upon him. He’s an anointed one and I want to see him do well, like Conor, so I’m going to try my best to help my little boy get there and that’s what I’m going to do: spending quality time with him because he’s coming back to England. First, he’s going to Barcelona to play football out there, then he’s coming to France and then back to England, then we go back to Australia. So he’s got the opportunity. I’m just encouraging him to get that mindset like what Conor’s got.”
That is the mindset Nigel had, too, as one of the great British boxing warriors and, yes, as a Hall of Famer, even if he thought it was a prank.
(Pictures courtesy of Matchroom Boxing)
Part 2 is coming tomorrow and will feature Nigel talking about Conor and his upcoming fight with Ryan Garcia, Conor leaving Matchroom, the dark days they’ve shared and much more