Super middleweight boxing legend Nigel Benn insists modern day superstar Carl Froch is not the verbal bane of the division – but rather adds colour to the scene.

The reigning WBC champion’s motor mouth antics have angered the likes of Joe Calzaghe and Amir Khan in recent months, and ‘the Cobra’ shows no signs of keeping quiet.

Benn’s era saw the antics of his old adversary Chris Eubank – one of the original fighters just as handy with his quotes as his fists – which stoked the fires for both of their World title meetings.

Frustratingly, ‘The Dark Destroyer’ never managed to shut him up either – falling in the first fight at Birmingham’s NEC in November 1990 before a draw after 12 rounds at Old Trafford in October 1993.

But Benn, a world champion with two global organisations at both middle and super middle, still believes the Frochs and Eubanks of this world are what makes boxing so appealing.

He said: “Carl is great, and while he is a guy with an undefeated record no one can knock him. You have got to have a personality, if you don’t have that then you won’t go anywhere.

“Look at it in snooker terms, who would you rather be? Steve Davis or Jimmy White? I would rather be White – a crowd pleaser. Steve is one of the best snooker players ever, but it’s Jimmy that is doing the things that are out of his world.

“That is what I tried to do, and that is what Carl is trying to do.”

‘The Dark Destroyer’ was back in Birmingham last night at a sportsman’s dinner at the International Convention Centre, in the city of his loss to Eubank and his points win over Sugar Boy Malinga in 1992.

But a little known fact was that his first fight foray into the second city came some four years earlier in the February of 1988, at the now demolished once-flagship Bingley Hall.

Benn took just two rounds to put away Canadian Byron Prince that night, and the win reminds him of a bygone age.

He said: “I remember it, of course I do! They were crazy days back then. Every fight was like a pressure cooker, there were some when you feared for your own safety!”

By Craig Birch