Some tragedies in the ring bring reforms. Others, unfortunately, get covered up and buried. According to Lisa McClellan, such is the case for her brother Gerald McClellan’s fight against Nigel Benn. On the night of February 25, 1995, the pair collided at the London Arena in Millwall for the WBC super middleweight title. But by the time the fight ended, one career was over. In the tenth round, McClellan took a knee and never got back up. When he made it back to his corner, he collapsed and was taken to a hospital. 

Lisa received a call from a friend who had accompanied McClellan to the fight. McClellan had suffered a blood clot in his brain, which resulted in extensive brain damage. Despite undergoing emergency surgery, he never recovered, emerging with severe, permanent injuries. Five minutes after the initial call, she received another, this time for permission for surgery. But it had already begun. Don King, Benn’s promoter, had authorized it despite not having the authority. 15 years later, Lisa was the one making the call. 

“One night I woke up, Andre,” Lisa told Andre Ward during a recent ‘All The Smoke Fight’ podcast. “I just looked up Nigel Benn on the internet.  Let me see what this dude [is] doing. I started reading that he tried to commit suicide and different stuff. So I found his agent [Kevin Lueshing], I emailed him, and I called him… I didn’t want to talk to Nigel. I guess I found comfort in talking to Kevin. So, we talked for a while. 

Lueshing wanted to know how Lisa and Gerald were doing financially. Taking care of her brother 24 hours a day, she had no time for a job, meaning there wasn’t a happy response to Lurshing’s question. So, he offered the siblings to fly to London to host a fundraiser. Lisa didn’t want that, but circumstances forced her to change her mind after about a year. And when they got there, that was the first time in over a decade McClellan and Benn came face-to-face. 

“When we first got there, Nigel came into the room. The first time I had ever met him, he came into the room, and he kept telling me he was sorry. And I always wondered if this was an accident cuz like I was sitting on the edge of the bed and he came and he knelt [near me] and he kept saying, ‘I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.’ … And when he went to talk to Gerald, I said, ‘Gerald, it’s Nigel Benn?’ 

Benn couldn’t believe it. McClellan rolled up his sleeves, as if he was ready to have their rematch. Of course, he was joking, as he still had his sense of humor intact.

“Then he said, ‘Man, you almost took my life… Lisa, did he do it on purpose or was it an accident?’

They were filming a documentary at the time, prompting Benn to ask that the cameras be turned off.

“He went into the other room and cried,” Lisa said during the podcast. “But Gerald said to him, ‘This could have happened to either one of us.’ 

But this moment sowed the seed of suspicion in Lisa’s mind. 

“It always played in the back of my mind what [he was] so sorry for? We started a documentary during that time with ITV. They ended up coming to Illinois, but his [agent] Kevin came; Nigel didn’t. And I was sitting in my backyard with Kevin because we had spent a lot of time around each other at that point… I said, ‘I want to ask you a question, and I want you to tell me the truth.’ I said, ‘Was Nigel Benn on steroids that night?’ And he said, ‘Absolutely.’ 

It’s worth noting that officially, Lisa’s claim was never confirmed when the fight happened, and Benn didn’t test positive for PEDs. During the fight itself, the ‘G-Man’ started strong, knocking Benn through the ropes in round 1 and dominating early. However, as the fight progressed, McClellan began showing signs of distress. Today, three decades since the fight, 58, blind, with significant hearing loss, and unable to walk, is McClellan’s life. 

Regardless, Lisa even has a theory about how Nigel Benn avoided PED detection.

Don King and Nigel Benn were celebrating in the hospital while Gerald McClellan fought for his life

Andre Ward, who remembers watching the fight, recalled never seeing Don King go over to McClellan to show support or concern.

“Nigel Benn is celebrating. He doesn’t really know what’s going on. Gerald is getting worse and worse by the second. And at least I didn’t see this. I didn’t see the cameras panning to Don going over to Gerald, I saw Don celebrating with Nigel Benn,” Ward said. “I understand that that’s his fighter, but just interesting to me.

This prompted Lisa to reveal an even uglier truth, at least according to her. She alleged that King went as far as to block a 90-minute documentary movie, titled ‘The Fight of Their Lives.’ 

“If you look on YouTube, there’s the documentary ‘The Fight of Their Lives.’ There’s a 90-minute version, and there’s a 60-minute version. We were doing the 90-minute version for the cinema… Don King put a stop production on it. We couldn’t finish it. If you look [at] the 90-minute version, they [are] sitting in the lobby at the hospital having a victory party while Gerald was in brain surgery, drinking champagne. 

Notably, Benn was taken to the hospital as well after the fight because he had passed out due to exhaustion. Lisa claimed that it was their only way to avoid detection of PEDs in the system. 

“Well, Nigel supposedly passed out,” she said. “But that’s the only way to avoid the urine test, also. 

According to Ward, in the UK, if a fighter makes it back to the locker room, they have to provide a urine sample for testing. But since Benn passed out and had to be taken to the hospital, he didn’t provide one, evading detection. When asked how she knew Benn and Don King were celebrating while her brother was fighting for her life at the same hospital, she revealed the truth with evidence hidden in the 90-minute version of the documentary. 

“I saw the footage. You can see the champagne bottles. Dom Pérignon in that 90-minute version being passed around in the lobby.”

Years later, Benn’s son, Conor Benn, would test positive for clomifene, a female fertility drug that is on the WADA prohibited list. It elevates testosterone levels in men. The substance was found in VADA-conducted tests in 2022 ahead of his scheduled fight with Chris Eubank Jr.

It’s safe to say that the accusations from Lisa McClellan are serious. However, there might not be any way to prove it three decades later. But do you believe her?