Benn vs McClellan, ITV, Monday Dec 5th, 10.35pm

Mind the windows Tino. wrote:

horizontalhero wrote:What is hard when watching reruns of this fight is to see how obvious it is that McClellan is in serious trouble a good three, possibly four rounds before it's stopped - he starts blinking alot and keeps pushing out his gum shield- fairly clear sign that he's not getting enough oxygen to the brain. The french ref was a disgrace-how he failed to notice this is beyond me.

I think you're being a little unfair on the ref there. It's easy with hindsight to say McClellan was showing signs of genuine distress, but I wouldn't have even known what these signs meant back then, and very much doubt I am alone in that. In fact, I would say unless you had knowledge of this kind of injury, then you wouldn't have even noticed when the fight was underway. It is not like he wasn't punching back or had completely stopped defending himself. It was a incredibly brutal and gruelling fight, and to suggest the ref should be picking these signs up in the midst of that is grossly unfair. It was 1995 not 2005. It was a tragic night but as a consequence of it, and other similar instances, the sport has made great strides in dealing with this kind of trauma. I don't think you can look back at that fight with any real objectivity armed with the knowledge of what unfolded.