Ex-Fighter Doesn't Accept That He's Blind AP ©1995 Associated Press
NEW YORK - Gerald McClellan can't
understand why he's not training for his next fight. The former middleweight champion
doesn't realize he's in a lifelong fight because of brain damage suffered in a bout
against Nigel Benn in London almost a year ago.
He's in the dark, literally and figuratively an object of
sisterly love, the reason for a family feud over his care. "Right now he's totally
blind, and it looks like he always will be," says sister Lisa McClellan. "He's
not aware he's blind. He thinks it's just dark or somebody's turned out the lights. He
suffered severe brain damage. " Lisa, 26, and her sisters, Sandra, 31, and Stacey,
24, take care of their 28-year-old brother in their hometown of Freeport, Ill. They work
round the clock in eight-hour shifts, although all have children of their own to care for.
"We've given up everything to take care of Gerald,"
Linda said.The sisters, all nurses aides, went to court to prevent their father, Emmite
McClellan Sr., from becoming Gerald's legal guardian, contending he left Gerald alone a
couple of times while he and his son were living together after the ill-fated fight last
Feb. 25. Linda Shorter, an aunt, is the guardian. Emmite Sr. and his daughters also are at
odds over the role played by Don King in the financial care of McClellan. Lisa contends
King has talked a better game than he has played in helping her brother. The father sides
with King, as does Angela Brown, mother of McClellan's baby daughter.
McClellan also has two other children with different mothers.
"We have enough money to last for the next year or two," Lisa said. Since
successful surgery to remove a blood clot, McClellan has withstood two strokes, Lisa said
in a conference call set up by the Boxing Writers Association of America. She also has
been told that he had a heart attack shortly after the fight, but that there is no medical
record of it.
McClellan, who returned home in August after stays in various
hospitals, has fought back to a degree of normalcy. He dresses every day, walks about the
house, sits at the table for his meals. He also can converse, but his short-term memory is
poor and his long-term memory is selective. "He has good days," Lisa said.
"He laughs. He talks. He's happy. Then he has days where he says, "Something bad
happened to me," and he wants to die." There also are bouts of anger by a man
who appears to be resisting accepting reality. "We're using various medications to
get his behavior under control, so we can go ahead with his rehabilitation," Lisa
said.
Part of McClellan's rehabilitation is walking on a treadmill.
"We have to tell him he's at the gym," Lisa said. "We have a hard time
trying to get him to understand there is something wrong with him." McClellan was the
kind of fighter who brings a crowd to its feet. A 6-foot-1 power puncher, who backed up
that power with speed and toughness. He won the WBC middleweight (160-pound) championship
by stopping Julian Jackson in the fifth round May 8, 1993, then successfully defended it
three times in bouts that lasted 30 seconds, 97 seconds and 93 seconds, respectively. That
is a total 3 1/2 minutes, 30 seconds longer than one full round.
His record was 31-2, with 29 knockouts, 28 of them in three
rounds or less. It looked like his challenge to Benn, of Britain, for the WBC
supermiddleweight title would result in another quick victory. He knocked Benn out of the
ring early in the first round, and some ringsiders felt Benn should have been counted out.
McClellan knocked down Benn again in the eighth, but McClellan had taken some hard shots
to the head, too. In the ninth round, McClellan sunk to his knees, claiming he had been
butted in the head. McClellan was knocked down twice and counted out in the 10th round,
then staggered to his corner and collapsed.
"He talked about the fight when he first came home,"
Lisa said. "He kept asking if he got knocked out. He remembered being on the
canvas."