It’s official. Former WBC & WBO world champion Nigel Benn, 55, will return to the ring one last time on November 23 at Resorts World Arena, located in the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham, England.
So why is he returning to the ring?
“This one is for me and has been many years in the making. My return to the ring is an itch I need to scratch. I feel fitter, stronger and more focused than at any time in my career. Age is nothing but a number, I still have good movement, quick hands and a good whack. I have been training for five years ahead of this event, the last two years intensively and as an elite athlete ahead of the fight.
“It is eight weeks until I return to the ring, and I am only a couple of Kilograms off weight. I feel strong and looking forward to stepping in the ring for the last time in November.
“Looking back at my career I feel I cheated myself. Even though I accomplished so much, I was walking on the dark side; cheating, taking recreational drugs at parties and smoking weed. Starting at eight years old, I smoked cigarettes throughout my entire career!
“Towards the end of my career, my life was out of control. When I hit my lowest point, I attempted to take my own life. By reconnecting with my faith, I have made the changes needed and now live a blessed life in Australia with my beautiful wife Carolyne and three of my eight wonderful kids.
“I want my return to the ring to demonstrate to anyone who is struggling that no matter how low you feel and no matter how bad things get there is always hope, there are people that can help you and you can always make the change to be a better version of yourself.”
Nigel will face former WBC super middleweight world champion Sakio Bika who is 15 years Nigel’s junior. Bika is one of the toughest boxers of the last two decades. In his 20 year career, Sakio has never been stopped and has taken undefeated boxing superstars Joe Calzaghe and Andre Ward the distance giving them the hardest night of their lives.
So why Sakio Bika?
“I respect Sakio immensely, he is a true warrior and did not want to take an easy option. He has shared the ring with some of the great world champions of recent years. He will come to fight and will not take a backward step. It will be a war.”
The event will be broadcast globally upon the Epicentre.TV broadcast platform on Nigel’s own channel: WWW.Epicentre.TV/Nigel-Benn
why did you not choose Chris Eubank?!
Benn hasn’t fought in 23 years. Bika last fought 2 years ago. Bika has never been knocked down or seriously hurt. Benn has. Scary fight for Benn…
I agree, this might not go so well for Benn. It’s one thing to be 55 and able to train hard, but it’s another thing to be in the ring at that age.
Agree the fights a bad idea, 55 is too old to compete at that level.
There seems to be a bit of misinformation going around about Bika tho which Ive read myself online. I didnt really follow his career, but since the Benn fight was announced I took a look on YouTube…Dirrell decked him and Jaidon Codrington had him badly hurt and down a few times back in 2007, but he’s never been stopped.
From 30 on, the loss of elasticity and resiliency is diminished – slowly, but progressively deteriorating until death. A boxer who fights after age 30 is helping nature along on its downhill course. A boxer who fights after 35 is pushing on the gas pedal, accelerating toward an early demise and making his trip there uncomfortable. The quality of his life after 40 will not only be speedily downhill but will carry with it the physical marks of his mistake, the marks of his profession.
These trademarks, when seen in the extreme, are called the ”Punch Drunk Syndrome.” Anyone who knows an old boxer can reel them off for you: a rollng, walking-on-your-heels gait, thickened brow, thickened nose, thickened (cauliflower) ears, stumbling, muttering speech, loss of balance, inability to think quickly, inappropriate speech patterns. Most of these are present in one combination or another in all fighters who have stayed on stage too long. For some, one bout, one beating, could have contributed to the combination of symptoms. In all, it is the same fatal mistake of helping Mother Nature along the downhill slide.
The first and most obvious risk is to the battle scarred brain, which already is giving off outward, readable signs of disfunction. The reflexes, the legs, the depth perception, the sense of balance is gone, or going. The kidney tubules, those sensitive tiny filters that keep your body chemistry in balance, are being obliterated (the fighter passes bright red blood in his urine) and with each fight the danger of urinary system failure grows greater. It will be a painful factor in his later life. It can be a disastrous factor if the fighter takes a body beating, which Ali prides himself in taking.
The heart and circulatory system are subjected to the same dangers and weaknesses as the public’s. The heart does not know it belongs to a champion of Ali or Frazier’s caliber. It only knows it is growing old and tired and fatigued, and at almost the midpoint in its existence, it is being asked to function at a young man’s level. Damage to the heart, manifested by high blood pressure is inevitable. And again, if not now, certainly in the future decade.
Yes age is just a number.
OK you earn $300,000,000. In your 60s you end up in a memory unit. You didn’t see it coming. Forgetting things. People. Forgetting how to get home. Then……………admitted to a nursing home. Sitting in a corner not knowing who you are or who it is visiting you. I’ve seen it. Very sad.
Picture yourself hitting your head at least 50 times a day from the time you are 17 until you are 30. A quality boxer is in continuous training, and if he is active, he receives an average of 50 punches to the head a day.
The brain suffers minor concussions in a fight, if it is a hard fight, and the fighter has slugged it out. Knockouts result in peticchial hemorrhages, small bleeding spots in the brain. These form tiny scars in the brain. Scars which, in time, will affect function if they are numerous and deep. Brain tissue does not regenerate, therefore, once there, always there. No hope of it getting better in time.
Now flash forward to a boxer who has been lucky in his career. At 30, he is in his prime. Unknown and undetected, time is catching up. The small injuries, the loss of elasticity,
Now consider the ones that are not lucky. Those boxers who have once been champions, who are considered heros, whose fans cannot believe that the skills that made them great are gone. These unlucky boxers fight past 35, deluded by their fans, by their managers, by their mirrors and by their brains, which are not functioning in a manner that allow them to make the correct judgments. Surrounded by people who want them to fight for financial or other reasons, deluded by their own egos and flawed judgments, seeing themselves as they were, not as they are, viewing the new raw fighters as easy pickings, they return in a pathetic travesty, a worn remake of every Hollywood B movie about boxing, These are the prime candidates for the punch drunk syndrome, the prime candidates to be pointed to by the clucking do-gooders who wish to eliminate boxing.
I seriously wish this fight was not happening
Age is more than a number, it is a state of being. Benn has taken quite a few blows to the head and the effects are beginning to show. He’s having a Donovan Ruddock moment, and this ridiculous fight at his age likely will end up in the same manner as Ruddock’s last and final fight. Father Time will make his legs betray him quiet early. His aged body will begin rebelling around the halfway point of round 1. If Benn survives the first round, he will be sucking air with increasing intensity by the middle of round 2. The spirit will be willing, but very quickly even Benn will silently and privately acknowledge that he has no business being back in the ring. The end for him, and the road leading up to it, will not be pretty. I figure he’s doing this because he needs the attention, needs the money, and again, needs money. By the way, did I forget to mention that I think he’s doing this because he needs the money? This is a familiar story.
I knew a professional heavyweight decades ago in his 30s. Strong, in the prime of his life. Now around 70 he doesn’t know who he is, where hes at, doesn’t realize his wife is dead, and is just a shadow of himself. While some live until their 80s with no real issues. Luck of the draw I guess. Lesson learned? If your good make enough to live on and get out with your health. GGG is on his way to a nightmare. Cuddling a teddy bear in the corner somewhere isn’t a dignified way to die.
Just curious why you mentioned GGG? Is it because he is getting up there in age and is showing signs of declining skills, or because he is showing signs of cognitive decline? Hopefully its the former. I agree that there is now reason for him to continue fighting. Granted he is still is a top middleweight and stands to make a few more big paydays, but is it worth it? Now would be an ideal time for him to bow out with his pride and brain cells still in tact.
Actually, neither of these guys should be fighting. Their combined age is 95! But hey, who are we to say? Both these guys are warriors and this is what they have lived for. There are decisions that we all make that are obviously not very smart. Fortunately, they are not all posted on the internet for every A-hole with a computer to opinionate on. It is kinda ironic however that Nigel Benn has chosen to fight being that he nearly killed a man in the ring and has been blind and in a wheelchair ever since.
Age is not just a number, after the fight you will realize you are wrong.
Why, why ,why???