No Middle Ground by Sanjeev Shetty

Author:Sanjeev Shetty
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MBI
Published: 2014-09-21T16:00:00+00:00

Scene III

For now, Nigel Benn was isolated. The controversial nature of the Eubank–Watson fight and the immediate rematch meant his name wasn’t mentioned as a future opponent for either man. His thoughts were targeted on getting Eubank, although his loyalty to Watson meant he wanted the Islington man to win the return. Benn would keep busy, his latest foe being a boxer who went by the name of Kid Milo. His real name was Winston Walters but he could easily have gone by the sobriquet ‘Tough Guy’. Milo wasn’t the biggest of middleweights but, a year earlier, he had gone eight hard rounds with Chris Eubank, cuts being the only reason he didn’t hear the final bell. He’d fought other Eubank foes such as Johnny Melfah and Simon Collins and had acquitted himself well, but Benn was a step up. Brave as always, Milo actually went straight at Benn on an intense night in Brentwood, and with disastrous consequences. Down twice in four rounds, Milo had to retire at the end of the fourth, with severe eye damage convincing referee Larry O’Connell to stop the bout.

Benn’s demeanour was different now – the black trunks were gone in favour of bright blue and he was also intent on telling anyone who listened that ‘the Dark Destroyer’ days were over. Intimidation was no longer one of the weapons he’d bring to the ring. You could almost feel the disappointment as the snarl was replaced by a smile. Big changes were taking place in his life outside of the ring as well. The Milo fight would be the last time Benn had Vic Andretti is his corner. He’d now have Graham Moughton, who worked out of the Romford gym where many of the Matchroom fighters trained by his side. Despite his reputation as an ‘up and at them’ fighter, there were still certain nuances that he wanted to add to his fight repertoire. ‘The technique Vic was trying to teach me was to roll with the punches, to keep my neck tight and not drop my head. Then Graham Moughton at the Romford gym was trying to teach me to draw away from my opponent’s jab. It was all these different techniques,’ Benn would say in 2002. The search for the perfect trainer for him continued and it would come to a head the following year.

If the start of the 1990s was remembered for the country being at war and the beginning of yet another recession, it was also notable for a new sound sweeping the nation. Dance music, which had been growing during the 1980s, was moving away from disco into a fusion of sounds like trance, drum and bass, acid jazz and hip hop. Clubs around Britain were alive to this new sound and being a DJ carried huge kudos. Nigel Benn was part of a new breed of boxer who trained to these sounds, eschewing the traditional Rocky anthems which had helped form the stereotypical image of boxers. The other

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