Free Nigel Benn by Nigel Benn

punched the daylights out of him. He tried to have a go at me but I got in first and gave it to him. From that time on, I was one of the main men in camp. Everybody showed respect. John tried once more to read me the Riot Act but his words fell on deaf ears.
    You didn’t have to be in the Army for very long to realise there were great advantages in being a good sportsman. I was given a work-out in a ring two months into my posting and must have impressed the officers who thought I showed enough promise to continue. John was already in the boxing team training up for a fight. They put me in the ring with Shifty who stood about 6ft 3in and had a massive chest. I panned him all over thering and the Sergeant Major took me straight out of uniform and into a tracksuit and that was it for the next year or so.
    Up until this time, I had had little or no boxing training. I’d been in the ring with John but he had decked me a couple of times and I thought it wasn’t for me. Long before this, I’d had a fight with him and he beat the granny out of me. At that time, I was looking for Mum to come and bail me out. John was tough. He may have been more powerful than me but he was not as agile. He was a heavyweight in the Army and only lost two fights, both to the same guy, George Jay. I had to fight Jay because he beat my brother twice and I battered him, even though I had just seen him knock out three other guys.
    Curiously, I didn’t want to become an army boxer because of my interest in the sport. It was more a matter of personal pride. I wanted to shine and make a name for myself. Perhaps the most pressing reason was being able to get off work and a lot of the unpleasant routines. Being a boxer meant you got special food — steaks instead of slops — and it also meant you could get up at 8.00am instead of 5.45am.
    Corporal Jones trained me at first and, as I got better, I began training others. I was constantly excused from army exercises so I could get on with my training, which included running and gym work-outs. When I was doing battalion boxing, Quartermaster Brown and Corporal Mark Gleason trained me. Gleason was a hard man but a good trainer. He still calls me now. Captain O’Grady wasthe chief man and he made me work really hard. I sometimes resented this but he did the right thing.
    Although I thought John would have the edge over me in boxing because he was heavier, he was very wary of my martial arts training. He rightly thought he wouldn’t stand a chance because of my speed and power punching. When we sparred, he said he couldn’t lay a glove on me. He would tell our mutual friends, ‘Nigel would hit me ten times and I was lucky if I could land one punch against him. When I tried, it was too late. He’d already be over the other side of the ring looking at me. I put that down to his martial arts training. His hand speed was phenomenal, absolutely phenomenal.
    ‘When we fought in the Royal Fusiliers, Nigel annihilated the Welsh champion in two rounds. At one stage, he put him against the ropes and gave him 20 punches up and down the body. The Welshman then tried to box and his arm went and it was all over.’
    That was some fight. I broke the Welshman’s arm with my head. He punched the top of my head in the second round. I nearly blacked out but recovered. I was about 18 then and a welterweight but he was really tough.
    When I fought for the battalion against the REME (Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers) one of my mates was knocked out. I jumped into the ring and knocked out the guy who did it in a couple of rounds.
    John always said my reputation grew at a startling speed and that I was feared in the ring, particularly when we visited Berlin to fightindividuals, both as novices and in open-class boxing. The most memorable fight was with the singles winner Harry Harrison of the King’s Regiment. John overheard someone say, ‘Watch that guy from the Fusiliers, he is so fast. It will be a very good