Conor Benn was never in Saturday’s fight for a world title with Ryan Garcia in Las Vegas.
It was odd to watch, a simple victory for Garcia after just 85 seconds of round two in front of a boisterous crowd of 18,855 at the T-Mobile Arena. Nobody expected it to be so easy, so quick and so strange. At the end, Garcia looked as stunned as the man he had left dazed and hurt on the ropes.
“He’s an average fighter,” Garcia said all week during the relentless marketing of the fight. Benn won the clashes during the week, by the way, but not one second of the fight for Garcia’s WBC welterweight title on the night.
It was odd to watch Benn look so passive.
Benn is not the first British fighter to go to America and challenge for a genuine and impressive world title against a good champion, and he will not be the last. British boxers have left behind images of bravery, often foolish determination, in a series of fights that were all lost causes long before the first bell.
Benn joined the distinguished list, climbing up from a knockdown and trying even at the end to stay in the fight, as about 20 unanswered punches landed somewhere above his shoulders.
It was desperate to watch the finish, such bravery from Benn. He had no idea that an opponent could ever be that much better, and that is an alarming realisation that quality fighters experience when they are exposed. And it is a shattering experience for the loser.
The finest example is a man called Don Cockell, perhaps the king of British losers in world-title fights in America.
In 1955, he travelled to San Francisco to fight Rocky Marciano for the world heavyweight title. Poor Don was dropped, hit when he was down, hit after the bell, never in the fight for a moment, hit low a dozen times (legal under local rules), butted, slammed with elbows and ruined in nine rounds. Marciano, you see, benefitted from a local rule that a man could not be disqualified – not for any infringement!
Cockell, with his face held together by stitches and plasters, returned to Battersea as a hero for his defiance. Marciano had one more defence and retired as the undefeated heavyweight champion of the world after 49 nine fights without loss.
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Cockell was in rare company, make no mistake; Garcia is fast, dangerous and cruel in the ring, but he is not Rocky.
Before the massacre back in 1955, the local press called Cockell “a dogged tub of fat” and “a tubby target”. Marciano led the praise after victory; in Las Vegas last week, Benn was never dismissed in such savage fashion. In defeat, it was more brutal.
Benn has no clear idea about what happens next in his extraordinary career, and that is good – he can just rest and spend time with his family, hold his children. He has few visible scars; he can work on the hidden ones over the next few months.
Cockell was just 26 that night against Marciano; it was his 79th fight, and he would walk away from the sport after two more fights – both ugly stoppage defeats. Benn is now 29, the Garcia defeat was fight number 27; he has time, money and the magic of modern matchmaking to help him heal and get back in contention.
It’s not an impossible journey, but it will be hard after the secret damage left behind by Garcia’s blistering fists.
