Nigel Benn (10 page)

F
rank Warren and Ambrose Mendy both had important roles in my fight career. I have got on fine with Frank Warren since he and American impresario Don King staged my later fights. He’s a good promoter and has become a much calmer person following his shooting in the East End of London.

However, when he was my manager in the first half of 1988, disillusionment set in because I wanted his individual attention. At the same time, I was becoming more susceptible to the
silver-tongued
eloquence of Ambrose Mendy. Fate decreed that our fortunes would be closely linked.

Ambrose became involved in my affairs as he did with several other sporting personalities, including Terry Marsh, a mutual friend. Terry had also been managed by Frank Warren and had stayed with me in Miami prior to his arrest for the attempted murder of Frank. He was acquitted at the Old Bailey.

All of us — Frank, Ambrose and I — each had strong wills of our own. With that combination, life
was never guaranteed to run smoothly. Frank was from Islington, north London. His dad was a bookie and the family branched out into entertainment. They sold juke boxes, pinball tables and cigarette machines to pubs.

Frank had left school at 15 and had been a salesman and meat porter before becoming involved in the leisure business. While I had once fought as a prize fighter, through his contacts in pubs Frank began staging fights. They were unlicensed by the British Boxing Board of Control, but licensed by the NBCL, and promoting them fired his entrepreneurial spirit. Eventually, it led to his manager’s licence, after a battle with the boxing establishment. Most of the London venues and boxers were dealt with by Mickey Duff, Terry Lawless, Jarvis Astaire and Harry Levine but Frank broke in.

He then got a promoter’s licence and was on his way to becoming one of the most powerful men in boxing in the UK.

Frank is a man who likes nothing better than making deals. Occasionally, we would socialise in clubs. Frank had quite a lot of style. However, Frank’s worst moment came on a cold November evening in 1989 when he stepped out of his chauffeur-driven Bentley which had brought him to a boxing match in Barking. He was shot with a 9mm bullet fired from an automatic Luger pistol, which nearly cost him his life. The bullet missed his heart by an inch, and the others that followed took away part of his lung. To top it all, surgeons then discovered that they would also have to
remove a benign thyroid tumour. He lost a lot of weight in hospital which he put down to ‘lead plan diet’. He always had a good sense of humour. Mickey Duff later quipped that Frank had learned many lessons in life: ‘One of them is to duck.’

I always admire people who get up and go and Frank did just that. After the shooting his business empire was in trouble. But Frank is back today and has joined forces with Don King who is probably the richest fight promoter in the world, worth about £500 million.

Ambrose was Mr Charm. He was full of charisma and hype and had everyone intrigued with stories about himself. Apart from running his company, World Sports Corporation, from plush offices near Tower Bridge, he was also trade development counsellor for the West African state of Guinea-Bissau. He once told a court his business was ‘hype’. He said, ‘If we are promoting an event, we are responsible for the hype. We are in the business of PR and creating press relations and secreting information to the press, especially the tabloid press. So that if you see a world exclusive, we would have been responsible for passing the information to the journalists. We have to develop as much hype as possible so that there is a clamour for tickets. Hype moves at a pace. Yesterday’s
news
is
yesterday’s
blues.’

From growing up in Hackney and running a stall in Islington selling children’s clothes (that’s where he met Frank Warren), Ambrose was now involved with some really big sporting personalities. They included my cousin Paul Ince,
John Fashanu, Linford Christie, Ellery Hartley and Terry Marsh. He always has interesting observations to make. ‘Charisma is a way, not a play. You can’t rent charisma by the day.’

While other people might shoot from the hip, Ambrose shot from the mouth. He would fire off about anything and make it seem funny. He told one interviewer, ‘It’s a dog-eat-dog, bullshit society. So you’ve got to take as much as you can for as little as you can fairly give. Fairly is the operative word. I don’t have a contract with anyone I represent. It’s all done on a handshake. If they want to walk away, they walk.’

Ambrose was an educated man. He was the fourth of eleven children and left school with three A-levels. His further education was in prison. At the age of 22 he was sent inside for six years. In four years he was moved around 21 prisons but made good use of his time studying finance and marketing. I was totally impressed with the quotes and sayings he would come out with.

With these two people in the background, I continued my run of successes in the ring. My first fight in 1988 was against Fermin Chirinos at Bethnal Green on 27 January. He was from Venezuela and a good old warhorse. I sparked him in two.

Just ten days later, I had to fight Canadian Byron Prince at Stafford on 7 February. It was at Tony Sibson’s challenge for Frank Tate’s IBF title at Bingley Hall. Although I won my bout, I didn’t see the title fight because CS gas was squirted in my and Sean Lynch’s face as we were walking back to
the ring after my victory.

John, my brother, was there as well but he didn’t get hurt. One side of Sean’s face was burnt and I began vomiting and was rushed to hospital. Police thought the problems involved Sibson supporters in Leicester and my supporters in London but John said the Leicester crowd were trying to get revenge on London lads whom they wrongly thought had been our supporters. He said stewards had to separate the warring factions and that the Leicester mob had got a kicking after Tony Sibson beat Mark Kaylor in London.

Prince was big and tough, but there was no way the Dark Destroyer was going to be scared of him. I never had any fear of my opponents. I was nervous but never afraid. I don’t think fear is an emotion I will ever feel again after serving in Northern Ireland. When I got out there, it seemed more like he was slapping me than punching me before I KO’d him on his feet.

Nearly three weeks later, on 24 February, I fought Greg Taylor at Aberfan in Wales. He was an American who really fancied himself. I split both of his eyelids and blood was gushing out. He was bashed from pillar to post. I still remember him exclaiming, ‘Goddamn!’ when the referee stopped the fight after one minute in the second round. Even though blood was flowing from his nose and eyes, he didn’t want to stop. He was bad-mouthing me and needling me before the start, trying to wind me up. That got me in the right frame of mind, especially when he kept saying, ‘You’re gonna go.’ I was determined to make him pay.

On 14 March I had another easy victory at Norwich, fighting Darren Hobson from Leeds. He was a good, average fighter who thought he was the next Nigel Benn. Do me a favour! He brought his amateur style into professional ranks and was out in the first round — history. I wanted a real fight. ‘Come on, Frank,’ I said, ‘give me a fight!’

I didn’t have long to wait. Warren arranged for me to fight Ghanian Abdul Umaru Sanda for the vacant Commonwealth middleweight title at Muswell Hill on 20 April. I thought I would have to work hard here. Sanda was big, tall and gangly but I had good support down there.

‘Go for your dreams,’ I thought to myself. I felt confident and did a lot of bobbing and swaying to make him miss me. He had lots of experience and I thought I would just have to cut him down. I was bashing his body and giving it to him left and right. I was having a field day. The ref was telling me to calm down. I bashed Sanda over in the first round and did him in the second. I went steaming in.

The ref was pulling me back and, at one stage, had hold of both my arms behind my back. At the end of the fight, I dropped to my knees and shouted a victory cry. It was my moment of glory although, afterwards, I was criticised by Les McCarthy, Burt’s brother, who objected to my antics. I resented his intrusion. He wouldn’t have got in the ring and fought like I did. I deserved that.

Muhammad Ali went berserk when he beat Liston and Sugar Ray Leonard did exactly as I did
after he beat Marvin Hagler. I’d just hammered a fighter who had never been stopped and won my first title. Nobody’s going to tell me I can’t celebrate a little.

My fight against American loud-mouth Tim Williams was to be my last with Frank Warren as my manager. It was arranged for 28 May at the Albert Hall. Williams, who had drawn with Marvin Hagler’s half-brother Robbie Sims, looked like an elf. He was ugly as sin but with a good body and physique. He was mouthing me off like nothing on earth but then I always welcomed that because I could go ahead and kick ass badly. He had a good reputation in America and was rated as the 27th best middleweight in the world.

It took him four minutes to go down.

My reputation had reached new heights by this time. I was on a high, and everyone was predicting that I was seriously going places in the world of professional boxing. I’d won my first title, I was unbeaten, and I was getting nearer to my goal of being a world champion.

Flushed with victory, I had to make a decision whether to stay with Frank or go with Ambrose. As far as Frank was concerned, I felt I had more than given myself to his cause. Frank had arranged for me to fight American Eddie Hall at Luton Town Football Club on 25 June on the same bill as Barry McGuigan. I walked out on him 48 hours before I was due to appear. I had a different battle on my hands now.

M
y boxing career really took off with Ambrose Mendy. At the time, he was the best thing for me. Ambrose was more than my mentor. He took the place of Andy, the older brother I loved and missed so much. He was charismatic and intelligent. He was my very own Milk Tray man with all the mystery, intrigue and looks of James Bond 007.

I loved him more than any other person. At the time, he was as important to me as Sharron. That is why, when it all went sour a few years later, I was deeply hurt and would never have another manager. When Sharron and I married, he was my best man. I modelled myself so much on Ambrose. He looked good. He was an attractive,
well-manicured
man about ten years older than me, who looked as if he’d never done a day’s work in his life and had loads of front. From the way he spoke, you would have thought he had a posh education but I know he’d improved himself in prison.

Although he came from the street, he had the
charm and class of a gentleman. But he did it without looking tacky and I learned a lot from him. Ambrose conducted business with flair. Admittedly he would sometimes be on another planet or in cloud cuckoo land but then he was also the sort of person who could make you believe that day was night.

He was the Don King of Britain. He had everything and I ended up loving him like a brother. Dad was not so ready to accept him, though. He warned me off him and told me not to trust Mendy. He was right, but I only found that out much later.

Ambrose liked doing things in style. He gave me lots of incentive and ideas. We did everything together and I tried to emulate his lifestyle. ‘If you’ve got it, flaunt it’ was the message. At his persuasion, I bought a Porsche on hire purchase. It cost me £4,000 a month! He made me live big but that never did me any harm. It helped me to think in telephone numbers when negotiating the purse for a fight. He showed me where I was going and I always thought that if I had a problem, Ambrose would be there to sort it out. And he was. He could be relied on to be there for me whenever I needed him.

We’d go down nearly every day to his office at Tower Bridge. It was a sumptuous loft conversion in black and pine and he’d lean back in his leather chair with the air of somebody very important. Ambrose had about three or four employees: Natalia, Georgiana, Tony and Jackie. Natalia thought the sun shone from his backside. She, like
him, had more bullshit than anybody I had ever come across. She tried to emulate Ambrose and also covered up for him. Like them, I thought he was God.

It was only later that I asked myself: ‘How come Ambrose is the one with two Mercedes and a large house in Wanstead with a swimming pool and gardeners, when I’m the one taking the punches and all I’ve got is a three-bedroom terrace?’

Ambrose would make me laugh at the things he came out with and his bare-faced cheek was incredible. He would tell a bank manager of 20 years’ standing how to do his job. It seemed like he knew everything about business and I was impressed then, and still am now, with his flair. His wife Jennifer, however, was not my cup of tea. I felt she was less down-to-earth than I was. I had no pretensions but Ambrose would believe his own hype. He got me a lot of press coverage. At the same time, however, he was building his own platform.

Frank Warren was furious that Ambrose had become involved with me. He warned me, ‘Walk out on me and you won’t find it so easy to get good fights.’ There was no love lost between us in those days. Frank was particularly angry that I had pulled out of the open-air show at Luton in June 1988 where Barry McGuigan topped the bill.

My fight with Eddie Hall was to be the chief support bout and a lot of people had bought tickets to see me. Warren’s plans for me to fight in Las Vegas the following month, as chief support for the
world middleweight fight between Frank Tate and Michael Nunn, had also fallen through and, once again, I wanted more attention.

I was seriously considering quitting Britain for America at this time because I was attracting a lot of flak from all quarters. It seemed that, having achieved some success, people were now jealous of that and were gunning for me. Britain appeared much more comfortable with failures like Eddie the Eagle than with successes like Nigel Benn.

My former manager, Burt McCarthy, from whom Warren had taken over, said my career could be ruined by my walk-out.

Frank, no stranger to courts, immediately issued writs and said I was being misled by my advisers. He said, ‘The people who are telling him what to do are a joke. Nigel is being advised by a bunch of half-wits and I will be serving writs on everyone involved. He has broken his contract by not going through with this fight. I know he’s had a lot of publicity but he must keep his feet on the ground. He’s missed a golden opportunity in front of American television. He can’t sign contracts and then walk out on them just because he feels like it. I’m not going to let him renege on a contract. It’s a matter of principle and I’m not going to give in over this.’

Frank insisted that our contract had more than two years seven months to run, with a further three-year option, and vowed he would enforce it. He won a High Court battle stopping me from signing a contract with Mendy pending further legal action.

In the meantime, however, I had also sued Frank. My writ disputed the validity of his management agreement. I then went back to court and won the battle to discharge the injunction ordering Mendy not to interfere in the contractual relationship between Warren and me.

Another weapon Frank tried to use at the time was the British Boxing Board of Control (BBBC), for whom I did not have any time then or now. They would not license Mendy and I was even threatened with losing my licence and being stripped of my Commonwealth championship if I had dealings with him. Later, Ambrose devised a plan of revenge which I carried out. I tore up my British boxing licence on television.

I also let it be known at the time that I no longer wanted to fight cadavers in the ring. I wanted real fighters like Herol Graham, Michael Watson and Johnny Melfah. While this was going on, Barry Hearn held talks with me about the prospect of teaming up.

I was angry over the whole affair. It was getting nasty and got very close to a punch-up between me and Frank. He didn’t
own
me. Nobody owns me. At one point, I felt like going round and working him over and I guess he felt the same about me.

Because of the bust-up, I did not fight for nearly five months. On 12 September 1988, Mr Justice Pill lifted the injunction stopping Mendy from acting for me. That left me free to box under my own management and I stepped into the ring with Anthony Logan at the Albert Hall on 26
October to defend my Commonwealth middleweight championship.

For some inexplicable reason, TV stations did not want to cover the event which was surprising considering how much they had plugged my earlier fights. We were assured that it had nothing to do with my TV walk-out from the Luton bout when I split with Frank. Promoter Mike Barrett who offered the rights was turned down flat. Mike’s co-promoters for the fight were Terry Marsh and Frank Maloney.

Both the BBC and ITV denied it was a deliberate blackout but as it turns out, by not putting it on they deprived fans of an exciting match. I was convinced that Frank, Barry Hearn and Mickey Duff were able to call the shots over TV coverage, and they certainly weren’t able to do much for me then.

Logan had had just over two years’ professional experience and had scored 14 wins in 16 bouts. He lost to David Noel of Trinidad before our fight and, until then, held a number 18 rating from the WBC. It was also Logan’s first defence of his Continental Americas title which he had won five months earlier when he beat Argentinian Ramon Abeldano in Trinidad. He was also a good puncher and had had five first-round wins between November 1987 and February of the next year.

As far as I was concerned, Logan was the ugliest, most horrible opponent I could wish for. He was a right mouthy fucker — he kept going on about how he was going to bash me up. I detested
him. I thought he was a horrible, horrible person. I had no respect for him and just fought to get rid of this man. As part of his pre-match hype, he said the opponents I had beaten were garbage. If that was the case, I was determined to add his remains to the scrap heap.

The Royal Albert Hall was packed. Logan had wound me up something rotten and I was trying to knock him out to teach him a lesson. But he caught me, crash, bang, wallop on the chin and over I went. I was up by the count of one and he was catching me with a lot of punches. He hit me 22 times. A lot of people do that but then forget their own defence. I thought, if you hit me 22 times and can’t knock me out, it must be ta-ta to you.

I threw a left and saw him screwing up his face. All of a sudden he was the one on the canvas, in spite of all those punches he’d thrown at me. Out, mate! His eyes were rolling in his head and his mouth was open like a stunned fish. That hit did it for him. He wobbled up and the crowd went whooping mad with delight. Many people had doubted me up until then and, even afterwards, were saying mine was a lucky punch but I was going for it. It wasn’t lucky. When they go, they go!

Dad and Mum had always come to my fights. Dad wouldn’t miss a single one, ever since I had partly blamed him for losing to Rod Douglas in our first amateur fight. I had told Dad that if he’d been there, I would have beaten Douglas both times. Dad told me, ‘I didn’t know how serious you were. If you want to go into boxing you need to go into it 100 per cent. Not 95. If you’re really serious, I will
be there for every fight.’ And he was. They were all very proud of me and I was happy that my parents both came to watch. After Logan, however, we banned Mum from further bouts.

Dad tells the story better than me because he was right there next to Mum. He said, ‘We were all keen to see this fight. It was like a comeback fight after Nigel’s problems with Frank Warren. Mum had settled down expecting Nigel to do his normal thing — which was to hit the other person and not get hit much himself.

‘Instead, he went down in the first round and Mum wasn’t pleased. Not at all. She kept looking at him and turning to me. In the second round, Nigel took all those punches without throwing one back at first and Mum decided she’d had enough. “Stop the fight,” she demanded. I told her to sit down. She wouldn’t. She yelled out, “Stop that man hitting my son.” We were at the ringside and there she was ordering me to get in the ring and break up the fight!

‘Fortunately, Nigel did the business and knocked out Logan before she had a chance to finish the fight spectacularly herself. I then turned to her and said, “See, your son has just knocked out somebody else’s son. What do you want me to do now?” I told her, “You’re not coming back no more.”’

It felt really good to put Logan down, but if I’m honest I can’t say I was particularly proud of my performance. It turned into more of a street fight than a boxing match — two big guys brawling because they didn’t like each other much.
I completely flipped, and afterwards Brian Lynch, my trainer, told me, ‘If you fight like that again, I’m finished with you.’ Man, he was mad!

After the fight, Frank Warren wanted to make up with me and start afresh but there was no way I’d agree to it. Ambrose was firmly entrenched as my mentor. Warren said he only had my interests at heart and urged that he didn’t want to see me go the way of John Conteh. He said of me: ‘He is in danger of making the same mistakes that wrecked John Conteh’s career. He is trying to go too fast, too soon … he needs my help.’ Frank went on to deny that, apart from one or two exceptions, he’d only got stiffs for me to fight and claimed I was fighting proper people and was being paid more money than any boxer at the same stage of my career.

Needless to say, his arguments failed to convince me then, although there is no doubt that he is now the number-one man in boxing in Britain.

My next opponent was David Noel of Trinidad. We were scheduled to fight at Crystal Palace on 10 December. He’d beaten Logan on points over 12 rounds and boasted how he’d never been knocked down during his 20 fights. Of his 35 contests, he had lost only four. He was now challenging me for my Commonwealth middleweight crown. I thought it would be another humdinger of a fight, but he got bashed up good. Real good. I thought he’d last at least six rounds. He was out in one.

I was now one step closer to fighting Michael Watson and getting my biggest purse ever:
£150,000. I had challenged Herol Graham to a bout but nothing came of it. Everything seemed at last to be going well for me. I was happy to have Ambrose and my purse had increased enormously and was now set to multiply many times more. My social life was also becoming more hectic. I had a lot of celebrating to do in the little time between fights and that was an important part of my life. I didn’t want to blow my money like a lot of boxers do but then I didn’t want to be the richest man in the graveyard either. I wanted to enjoy my money. I had a small circle of close mates and a large circle of hangers-on. When I was not training, it was party time.