Nigel Benn’s comeback at the age of 55 is a dangerous temptation of fate | Kevin Mitchell

It is nearly 25 years since Nigel Benn and Gerald McClellan went to war in London, but the tale took a surprising and unfortunate twist on Thursday afternoon.

To the astonishment of all but those inured to the machinations of the fight game, Benn announced he is returning to the ring in Birmingham on 23 November – at 55, against Sakio Bika, who is 40 but was a world champion as recently as 2014.

McClellan, knocked senseless in the 10th round after one of the most brutal fights in living memory that February night at Docklands Arena in 1995, will be unaware of all this. His every moment since then has been a dull blur, and he copes with the wreckage to his sight and hearing in a wheelchair in Freeport, Illinois.

In his own painful aftermath, Benn, the bloodied victor, fought five more times, contemplated taking his own life, emigrated to Australia, found God and now will risk his own health again. It is an astonishing narrative and an even more incomprehensible decision for Benn, who is four years older than his crippled friend, and 15 years older than his opponent.

At a press conference in London, Benn explained his reasons for coming back under the auspices of the toweringly obscure British and Irish Boxing Authority. The British Boxing Board of Control would not licence him, and the promoters Eddie Hearn and Frank Warren would have nothing to do with the fight.

Sign up to The Recap, our weekly email of editors’ picks.

Bika, an awkward customer who lived up to his ring name of the Scorpion, gave Joe Calzaghe a good argument over 12 rounds in Manchester 13 years ago, and he held the WBC super-middleweight title in 2013. He has not fought for three years, but even an active contender might step around him.

Nevertheless, Benn, whose last fight was a second defeat by Steve Collins in 1996, insisted: “It’s been a long time coming. I have been on a journey. This fight is all about me. It was not financial. I wanted closure that I never had.

“I had a lot of issues in my life after my brother died in 1972, that I carried through to my adult life. I started smoking aged eight and took ecstasy and suffered with depression for most of my life. I look at [my] fights and don’t know how I did it. I was in a dark place for so many years. There was no joy. I dealt with the tragedies to Gerald McClellan and Michael Watson. I only had peace when I was away training.

“I wrestled with so many suicidal thoughts during most of my fights. In 2008 I had an encounter with Jesus and my life changed, no more spliff, ecstasy or women.”

Nigel Benn and Gerald McClellan during their fateful meeting in February 1995



Nigel Benn and Gerald McClellan during their fateful meeting in February 1995. Photograph: Getty Images

Not a single one of these is a sensible or convincing reason to fight again. Benn is talking to himself, though, not a wider audience. He has labelled the promotion “closure”. That is dangerously tempting fate. He should know. He has been to boxing hell and back.

Only the most bloodthirsty of the 12,000 people who filled the Docklands Arena, the 13 million watching on television and the many thousands who read daily bulletins about McClellan’s fight for life would have concluded that either would ever again contemplate a repeat of their suffering.

McClellan, mute and permanently damaged, was unable to. But Benn, the survivor, returned to the business until Collins put him into retirement with a sixth-round stoppage in Manchester in 1996. Benn admitted he might have come out for more punishment had the purse been bigger. The £400,000 he received was his pension. He’d given his all, or as much as he was prepared to give.

There can be no doubting the size of Benn’s heart. It is his rationalisation that should be questioned. Fighters, almost without exception, come back for money. If that is Benn’s motive, he is not saying. If he misses the adulation and fleeting celebrity, that is believable. Retired boxers spend a lifetime reliving past glories.

But it is woefully misjudged. The spasm of excitement that will course through Benn’s still rock-hard body during the course of the contest will filter out into the arena one last time. The crowd will rise to him, he will glow, in victory or defeat. Then the lights will dim, the fans will fade away and dull reality, for actor and audience, will crowd in again.

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email [email protected] or [email protected]. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org.

source: theguardian.com