By Samuel Lee: Today marks the 48th birthday of one of European boxing’s greatest performers, Chris Eubank.
Eubank was an eccentric like none other; standing tall and posturing, walking tall and swaggering, before, after and even during rounds!
Outside the ring, he was famous in England for his immaculate dress attire that included riding boots, cane and eye monocle!
He spoke royally and referred to boxing as purely business. An unforgettable one-off in the UK.
Eubank started his boxing career in Atlantic City however, a little-known fact. He was living in New York City at the time and even participated in the Daily News Golden Gloves at the MSG in front of 20,000 New Yorkers and an ABC audience of millions.
His opponent that night was Joseph Henry, who possessed a tremendous counter left hook and outpointed the straight-shooting 18-year-old Eubank narrowly.
As a young professional he fought on the undercards of Prince Charles Williams, Dwight Muhammed Qawi, John David Jackson and Frankie Randell and was known as a polite kid asking for tips. The likes of Floyd Patterson, Steve Farhood, Johnny Bos and others spoke highly of him for his left hand, hand work and foot work and thought of him as a future champion.
The 21-year-old 154lber kickstarted his career back in the UK in 1988 and brushed aside three late replacements followed by three light-heavyweights as a late replacement himself.
Against WBC-rated Anthony Logan, who very nearly beat the hugely hyped Brit Nigel Benn, Eubank was predicted to lose. He proved however he was far from out of his depth as he dominated Logan with a display of workman-like boxing skill over eight rounds, that included lots of furious flurrying and the passion to win.
Two tricky fights against slippery journeymen followed before a sublime, eye-catching display of dancing, catching and uppercutting against a willing Canadian journeyman saw Eubank tipped for stardom by many.
It started a run of impressive stoppage victories that culminated in a Cardiff performance against Welshman Denys Cronin, an idol of none other than Joe Calzaghe, that showed Eubank had mastered every shot in the book whether led or countered, singularly or combined. Boo’d out of the arena, Eubank seemed to thrive on being the ‘villain’ and made it his forte.
WBC International Champion Hugo Corti was no bother, despite being ranked #12 with the WBC and #11 with the WBA (Eubank was #12 with the WBC and pushed to #4 with the WBA following the fight) as Chris won his first title, defending it against slippery journeyman and late replacement Contreras, like Corti an Argentine, in a fight that saw him complete 12 rounds for the first time.
Now Chris was contesting domestic-level Kid Milo and proved he belonged in the world-class as he clearly looked a couple of notches above his opponent, calling out none other than Nigel Benn himself in the post-fight interview, then riding high Stateside as World champion and Barkley-conqueror.
Benn was a bombastic banger who set a furious pace in his fights and the most popular British fighter possibly ever at the time with a soccer hooligan-like following. Eubank showed no fear, having lived in the South Bronx as a teen, and the build-up received more publicity in the UK than any non-heavyweight fight in history.
Benn came out all-guns-blazing but Eubank slipped and skipped around the ring with his quick feet and let off right leads and fast flurries at the right times, dominating the more experienced Benn in the opening stanza without taking a clean blow!
Benn found his range in the second round and the fight was set alight, Eubank flurrying furiously and Benn loaded with everything he had, including rib-crunching body shots and an uppercut that split Eubank’s tongue. A Eubank right hand closed Benn’s eye and both men look set for the ambulance after only four rounds.
The brutality continued, when at the end of the ninth, Benn finally folded, Eubank hung in there and stopped him against the ropes with seconds remaining to end the round, Richard Steele jumping between the battered bodies to hold Benn up and declare the eccentric though warrior-like Eubank the new WBO world middleweight champion.
High-profile title fights for Eubank quickly followed. There were sharp suits, comedies, controversies, tragedies – all in less than 10 months following the big Benn win.
Eubank was a talker, there were million-pound deals, he acted as though he was running the business and the people wanted him more and more. He was rarely out of the papers or off the TV screens. No fighter had ever received the same ammount exposure in one country.
He was the first sportsman to really be sought-after on the celebrity chatshow circuit in the UK, and following his close points win over Michael Watson at the famous Earls Court, both the front and back pages of most national newspapers reported robbery!
A rematch was demanded, was fought at a ferocious lightweight-like pace between two young men in phenomenal shape – carrying more lean dense muscle tissue than any non-heavyweights I’ve seen – and ended in terrible circumstances as Watson was carried out on a stretcher and ended up wheelchair-bound.
The outcome affected Eubank as he no longer ‘went for the kill’ when an opponent was on the hook, preferring to see out the rest of the fight with posturing and win a (sometimes narrow) points decision instead.
The Watson incident killed him as a fighter as he no longer spoke of fighting in America against the big American names, preferring to stay in Europe to make his money, bitter at both the sport and the disdained attitude most of the UK felt for him – he now contested for financial gain and for himself, in many ways a throwback to the days of Jack Johnson as a businessman-boxer.
His big-money deal with SKY TV in 1994 made him the first boxer to sign for a TV station directly on his own terms, and it was a method copied by Henry Maske and Dariusz Michalczewski in Germany and by Roy Jones and Naseem Hamed in the US.
A draw with arch-rival WBC kingpin Nigel Benn, victory over former unbeaten IBF kingpin Graciano Rocchigiani in Germany, as well as Lindell Holmes and Tony Thornton, and the two Watson wins, saw his CV actually look very impressive; not even taking into account the regularity of his title fights which was a throwback to Joe Louis.
Enter Steve Collins. By now, Eubank was an economist in the ring – throwing little, pulling out or staying on the edge of range. Collins firstly played mind tricks with Eubank, pretending he had been hypnotised and was incapable of feeling pain, playing on Eubank’s emotional side with the Watson tragedy. In the ring, Collins let Eubank lead before launching at him with his own shots – so for every punch Eubank threw, he found two back in his face.
And when Collins did finally go over from a Eubank shot, the hypnotizing claims played their part as Eubank clearly had those flashbacks to Michael Watson and didn’t go in for the kill when Collins was there to be taken.
Collins took the ‘0’ from Eubank’s record 44-fight unbeaten streak narrowly on points and suddenly Eubank no longer seemed Mr Invincible himself. He carried on fighting, retired and came back, lost his last four WBO title fights to Collins again, Carl Thompson twice at cruiserweight and to a young Joe Calzaghe.
But the imprint he left on boxing lives on to this day, as we see the flashy ring entrances and business-like approach from todays kingpins like Mayweather that all started with Eubank.
Happy Birthday Champ.
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