what do you all think went wrong with gerald mcclellan?

[thealfa]

prior to the benn fight, the guy had 2 losses to unknown names. Makes you wonder. This was early on his career. The guy didn't fight for 9 months prior to his final fight with Benn. Poor management? The guy does not belong in the super middleweight, you can tell by his body size, it's like Green vs. Codrington when Codrington looked like a dead ragdoll in the first round KO. though McClellan had the height. He was only 165 pounds in the Benn fight. Benn was naturally a super middle weight at 168. Wasn't there a falling out between McClellan and Emmanual Steward, his ex trainer? What was that about?

From round 2 I see Gerald with his mouthpiece halfway out. Very unusual. He was clearly taking the bigger punches as Benn was only overwhlemed in the 1st round, that was all I saw, overwhelmed, not hurt. One upper cut Benn threw at Gerald is reminiscent of what Chris Eubank threw at Michael Watson that ended up Watson getting permanently injured in the fight. Was the G man a damaged fighter even before the Benn fight? How so? I've heard rumours? Maybe that was what the falling out between McClellan and Steward? That he should not continue to fight, considering he had a 9 month layoff, for a right hand surgery? or Shoulders? It could be something as well, but no one is talking. Everyone is hushing so that way the Feds would not do any more regulating than it already has in boxing.

[Silencers]

Steward matched his prospects pretty tough to make them learn on the job, so no, I don't think it was bad management that made McClellan lose those 2 fights, if McClellan wins, it's a learning experience, if he loses, he also builds experience and also build character.

It wasn't that McClellan didn't belong at 168, he needed to move up eventually even if he didn't move up when he did, he was a pretty tall guy for middleweight. The way he moved up wasn't right though, according to Steward he heard that McClellan was eating junk foods to move up to 168 and even though he was eating jump foods, he wasn't gaining that much weight which meant there was something wrong somewhere.

McClellan and Steward fell out because McClellan started to slack off in training and stuff, stopped listening to Steward and wanted to do what he wanted to do which of course didn't sit well with Steward.

I've read that McClellan was suffering from headaches and nausea after I believe the first Jackson fight, it was a fight where he took a lot of bombs himself from a huge puncher before getting Jackson out of there so yeah, personally I think it was a matter of time before something happened to him.

[Adamantium]

I read that Gerald used to walk around at around 180 between fights, and he moved up because it was geting to hard to keep boiling down.
He had some kind of head injury walking into the Benn fight, thats for sure. As the poster above said he was suffering from headaches and nasuea after the first Jackson fight. In preperation for the Benn fight he was sparring with heavyweights as well, which didnt help.
As for the fight itself, his trainer should of thrown in the towel, but he was obviously more concerned with a potential roy jones fight down the road if McClellan beat Benn.

[Breakbeat]

He fucked up!

[PittyPat]

The constant onslaught of hard rabbit punches in that Benn fight can't have helped much, either. I hope that idiot French ref was assaulted afterwards... somewhere, somehow.

[Bushidō]

Back then it didn't matter as much if you had losses on your record. Now people are obsessed with 0 losses

[The Noose]

He would have become a great super middleweight in time. No one else was able to batter Benn the way McClellan did that night, of course he belonged at that weight.

If it wasnt for the brain damage, he would have won the fight.

He looked like he expected an early KO, didnt train for a 12 round fight, and totally neglected his defence. Thats what got him in trouble.

[djtmal]

i thought the rabbit punching and headbutting did gerald in...

[rwong]

It's getting more and more like soccer. Stats and numbers and what not. I prefer a good ol fist fight.

[PittyPat]

i thought the rabbit punching and headbutting did gerald in...

I'm absolutely convinced they had something to do with it, along with the other strange problems that have been documented before (like him being hurt in the same way during a sparring session some years prior).