There's always been the rumour that Jones ducked Benn after seeing how his old mate Gerald Mcclellan ended up, Read the Jones interview from 2008 below - Jones was definitely way more conscious of what could happen to any fighter after that night and it definitely affected him but he doesn't go deeper into the subject.
There is also stories that Benn priced himself out of a potential fight with Jones in 1993 but also stories that Jones was too inexperienced back then
Don King was promoting Jones back then so anything could have stopped the fight happening
Would love to know the real story of why they never fought
Seems weird that our UK elite never faced the US elite (barring Ben v G-Man) back in the day
Wonder if @Scrap might know something
But having fought professionally in three decades he admits to being sickened at what his sport can produce. 'You wouldn't want to watch a bad situation,' he says, conceding he could never see a tape of a boxer being seriously injured. 'You don't want to see that happen to no other fighter.'
Jones, a deeply religious man who describes his relationship with God as 'the only thing that kept me going through this whole thing', understands that potential disaster is always near.
'Every fighter is close to that every time they go in the ring. It can happen any time. You don't know when it could.'
In February 1995 it happened to his friend Gerald McClellan, when he lost to Britain's Nigel Benn in a particularly brutal WBC super-middleweight title fight. Stopped in the 10th round, McClellan, a dog-fighting fan who had beaten Jones as an amateur, slipped into a prolonged coma. He lost his eyesight, could not walk and is now almost completely deaf. At 27 his life had changed forever.
Has Jones ever watched the bout? 'You would never watch that fight again. You wouldn't want to watch it,' he says, quietly.
Had he visited McClellan since the bout? 'I don't need to - it would make me quit boxing.'
Quit? 'Yeah.'
Why? He repeats: 'Cos it'd make me quit boxing.'
Pressed further he says: 'My reason would be more because I don't want to do that to nobody.'
Is it a worry that he has the potential to do so? 'You wouldn't want to be the one who did it.'
Jones's quiet manner can make him seem uninterested, but he is actually thoughtful and open to most subjects. And, despite having taken his share of blows during 134 amateur and 52 professional fights, he is still of clear mind.
'That's my strong point. With me I come in the ring and start thinking right away,' he says. 'My thought process is just to put a guy down. I'm like a technician and learn to break it all down - from head to toe.'
But he returns to what can happen to even the very best of fighters.
'I don't think Nigel Benn was the same after he did that to Gerald. I fought
Gerald once,' he says. 'He was a very good fighter.'
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/20...portinterviews
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