Emanuel Steward quotes on Gerald 'G-Man' McClellan

"Gerald McClellan is the most talented fighter I have ever worked with. And he had the ultimate chin... We had him sparring Tommy (Hearns) when he was just 16 because he was so assured.. Tommy caught him with stiff jabs giving him a bloody nose and was speaking into his ear.. the next thing we know Gerald threw off his headgear and was cussing as he charged at Tommy with straight rights and lefts, now Tommy is a survivor with an instinct so he threw his best right hand.. it was an awesome punch, the most awesome punches are unleased under pressure - Gerald walked straight through it!" "I hold my hand up and admit that I should of spent more time working with Gerald at the start of his career, but I was so tied up with Dennis Andries and the other fighters at the time. Gerald was such a dominant amateur, and he was Willie's fighter (Willie Brown), Willie took care of him. I had all my attentions focused on Dennis Andries and his defence against Jeff Harding, Gerald fought on the undercard and lost his fight.. after his back-to-back losses I knew I had to step in and work closer with Gerald again. As the 80's turned into the 90's, he developed into an awesome boxer-puncher. Before that, we had Gerald fighting his usual, natural style.. an all-out attacker and pressure fighter. But I worked hard with him developing a more patient approach after his back-to-back losses, and it worked. He was no longer a head-on fighter, he became the best boxer-puncher in the business when he had me in his corner between 1990 and 1994. He became one of those guys who would never throw wild punches no matter what, and he never went straight at his opponents from then.. not at all. He would never never go at them, he preferred the slower pace now, we worked on it and he was doing good. His crosses were so good, it's difficult to think of better head punchers than Gerald when you put hooks and uppercuts aside. He circled opponents and picked them off well, he had a good jab when he used it, and he was a better body puncher than Mike McCallum. Gerald threw hooks and uppercuts to the body like nobody else. It was Tommy who gave Mike his 'Body Snatcher' nickname, but Tommy says that Gerald's body shots were more difficult to prevent and gave more discomfort too. Gerald's timing was second to none. When the time was right - and he knew when the time was right instinctively in the mind - he put the killer punches in, and he was so good physically that he often found the killer punches in the first three minutes or even the first one or two minutes of a fight." "Yes it's true that Gerald beat Roy as an amateur, he beat him soundly at the Golden Gloves in 1988 when he went right at Roy and traded as was his style back then. But Gerald decided to put in the work to switch and turn professional rather than go to the Olympic's, he wanted a jump on Roy because they were seen as potential rivals for when they got into the pro ranks. But it was Frankie Liles and Tim Littles who got most of the attention in the late 80's and early 90's, Gerald and Roy didn't actually get much attention until they built up their knockout streaks and because Littles and Liles didn't have their re-match quick enough. Then the attention centered onto Gerald and Roy, and they were seen as the two guys who would dominate as the top two fighters of the 90's, and it just so happened that they were the same weight. Roy won his IBF title at middleweight in the same month that Gerald won his WBC title at middleweight, and they were genuine friends outside of boxing. Gerald would never have lost a boxing match in the 1990's if he had stayed at the Kronk." "When Gerald won his first World title, he cried with joy in the changing room afterwards. It was in England and he was up against John Mugabi, a deadly puncher. It was Gerald's first time abroard, but he was so assured and composed. I remember Tommy was holding the WBO super-middleweight title at the time, we asked Chris Eubank and Michael Watson if they could fight their re-match at super-middleweight so that Eubank's WBO middleweight title would be left vacant, they agreed and so Tommy vacated his super-middleweight title for them and we got Gerald in there for the WBO belt. Gerald had worked his way up the WBO rankings.. but I felt he was just a little too inexperienced to fight Eubank who had already tamed Nigel Benn. After Mugabi though, I'd of had no problem throwing Gerald in with anybody in the middleweights, light-middleweights or super-middleweights and would of been very confident that he would beat any of them. I knew he was physically ready before Mugabi, he'd improved a lot over the previous two years.. but being so assured in his first time abroad against a deadly puncher proved he was mentally ready too." "I got close with Gerald after his back-to-back losses because I knew that I potentially had an all-time great boxer-puncher on my hands, I just had to switch him from his all-out attack mind-set into a patient boxing boxer's mind-set with a power punch for when the opening was sensed. He lived at my home and I took care of him, but we were at eachothers throats for years.. I always wanted Gerald to put in some rounds but he refused. When I asked Gerald to take it some rounds, he'd say to me "Why should I stand around for 12 rounds when I can get the job done in 1?". This was fine with me in a sense, because I knew that Gerald had the ability to end a fight against anybody very early on - so what this would do is play on Gerald's mind that he'd never been a few rounds in a fight and would force him to find the right time to land the right punch to make sure he ends it early! But what wasn't fine with me was being disobeyed like that, all I asked for was Gerald to go a few rounds and he'd refuse.. that's what got to me - being disobeyed. But the main reason why we split was because Gerald wouldn't take the fights I wanted him to take, he'd take Don King's opinion over mine." "When he left the Kronk, that was it really. I knew he'd lose sooner or later. I heard that he wasn't doing his work, he was sparring every day but that was as far as it went.. this is what I heard that he didn't do anything else apart from try to knock guys out in the gym. He wasn't working on strategy, he wasn't doing his work. Now Gerald had good, good stamina when he was with me just as all my fighters do because the heated, low oxygen surroundings in the basement of Kronk forces you to have good stamina. I had Gerald on the rowing machines after sparring, and I prepared special meals for him before bouts. When Gerald left me, his training suffered and his eating suffered, and his strategy suffered, and ofcourse his stamina suffered bigtime. After the Jackson re-match, he moved upto super-middleweight to follow Roy Jones because they were on a collision course.. but he went right at Nigel Benn and that's suicide. Why didn't he just pace himself? That was suicide against Benn. I heard that he was eating junk like burgers all throughout the training camp for the Benn fight, he had a hard time putting on weight but I would prepare special meals for him and have him eating lot's of good food.. but I heard he was eating a lot of junk like burgers all the time before Benn and I even heard that he wrapped his own hands in the dressing room before the fight. He wouldn't of 'made it' without me, I couldn't believe he was wrapping his own hands. I would drag the bandage tightly and precisely across the base of the wrist, securing the middle part of the thumb to bring balance to the hand, bulking up over the outside knuckles to level off the hitting area at the top of the fist, which relieves pressure on the two more prominent knuckles, then bringing the bandage around and under to form a comfortable ball in the palm of the hand - Gerald's fist was such a shape that when I did this he could punch through a wall!" "Make no mistake about it, Gerald would of beaten Roy again. I don't think so, I know so! He had the speed, he was tall and physical, he had the chin, and Roy knows full well what an awesome puncher he was - not just in power but in timing. He had so much going for him, if he'd of stayed with me he would of put Roy out within six minutes of boxing. Gerald could of been the best of the 1990's, and I think he would of been had he stayed at the Kronk."