Collins proves his pedigree as champion

A FIGHT which started with the champion, Steve Collins, being booed roundly by a majority of the capacity crowd in the Nynex Centre in Manchester on Saturday night ended with their hero, the challenger Nigel Benn, getting the same treatment after his extraordinary retirement while sitting on his corner stool before the seventh round started.

The ending was even more extraordinary than that which brought the previous meeting of the two to a conclusion at the same venue last July when Benn limped out of the ring with a twisted ankle in the fourth.

It is fair to say that last Saturday night's fight was a much better contest than the previous one. Benn was fitter and much more willing to go on the attack.

Even so, all three judges at the ringside had Collins clearly ahead at the end of the sixth. Two judges gave the score at 58-56 while the other gave it even more convincingly as 58-55. Considering that the referee, Paul Thomas, ordered a deduction of a point from Collins for illegal use of his head in the fifth round those scores would indicate that Benn had shared only one of the rounds up until the stoppage.

Yet, that was not a totally accurate reflection of Benn's effort. He had tied up Collins effectively in many situations and although he had taken quite a bit of punishment to the head and the body he seemed not he be in any serious trouble.

Later after the fight it was clear that Collins had been getting through in a fairly substantial way to Benn's head as there was considerable swelling under Benn's right eye. As well as that a rumour swept the hall that Benn's corner men, including his trainer, Peter DeFreitas and his cuts man Danny Mancini had told Benn that he had he would be pulled out unless he managed to put Collins under more severe pressure.

All along there had been the feeling that Benn was fighting for a last big pay day. Yet, to his credit, he seemed in very good physical and mental shape for the fight and he and Collins more or less joked about the way that they had put on a show of antagonistic hype for the benefit of the media. That is all very well but people these circumstances should remember the fable about the little boy who mislead his neighbours by shouting "wolf" once too often only to be gobbled up when a real wolf came on the scene.

Basically it was an untidy fight. Benn kept ducking well below waist height making it difficult for Collins to find the target. Both boxers brawled and mauled quite a bit and the referee had to drag them apart frequently.

At the start of the fourth round, before a punch was thrown the referee lectured the pair about their spoiling tactics. Later in the round Collins was down on one knee from a slip and was fortunate that Benn did not connect with a wild swing at that very moment.

Brendan Ingle, the Dublin born trainer of Naseem Hamed, put it succinctly afterwards when he said: "It must be like hell when you keep hitting Collins with everything you have and he keeps on coming back at you, pressuring you all the time."

It is as good an assessment of Collins as there is available. He seems to grow stronger and more persistent as a fight goes on. His steely determination to succeed wears down his opponent and although he may be criticised for "not having a punch" it has to be admitted that the cumulative effect of his punching is such that there are few, if any, boxers at his weight in the world at the moment who could stay with him over the long haul.

He has now defended his WBO title six times, twice each against highly rated challengers such as Eubank and Benn whose quality has never been questioned. He deserves all that he has achieved but he also deserves the respect and indeed affection of the Irish people who pride themselves on knowing a good boxer when they see one.

Collins is now, without, doubt the most successful Irish professional boxer ever. He was cheered to the echo in Manchester on Saturday night by the people who had booed him into the ring. That in itself is a fine achievement.

In the other two world championship contests "Prince" Naseem Hamed did precisely as he said he would when he stopped his Argentine challenger in the third minute of the second round of their WBO featherweight title bout.

Remegio Molina, previously undefeated in 27 bouts in Argentina, managed to stay out of trouble in the opening round but ran into heavy weather in the second.

The light middleweight title bout between the champion, Ronald Wright from the US and local man Ensley Bingham was a one sided affair which went the distance with the American being declared an overwhelming winner at the end.