Why was Eubank rubbish in some but brilliant in others..??

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Greg Nicholas
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Why was Eubank rubbish in some but brilliant in others..??

Post by Greg Nicholas »

I really dont get this.. ive been watching his career DVD lately (brings back so many mems) and he was Brilliant against Logan, Benn (1), Jarvis, Thornton, Jiminez, Holmes, Rocchigiani, Wharton, Godoy, Barratuebena, Thompson but Rubbish against Moro, Sherry, Stretch, Malinga, Essett, Benn (2), Close (2), Collins (2), Schommer, Barrera..

Literally brilliant, and literally Rubbish. Why such sharp contrast..? Ive never known this with any other boxer, where he can be sharp and smooth in one fight but then so lacklustre and clumsy in the next, baffling..

In the 1st Watson fight we actualy had this concept in one single fight, for the 1st half of the fight he was sharp and brilliant while for the 2nd half of the fight he was clumsey and rubbish!
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Post by TerribleTerry »

His style led to uneven performances and maybe a fair bit had to do with weight draining effects on his huge frame.

Eubank struggled monumentally with his weight throughout his career and when his jab wasnt sharp and his timing was off he could look really clumsey and poorly co-ordinated.

Often, aside from the shot that KO'ed Jarvis, his right hand could look like that of a raw novice. Amazing really when you consider how successful he was and how many great fights he took part in.

The atmosphere for a Eubank fight night was often electric and I, as a kid, loved watching him fight. :TU:

More often then not in his biggest fights he won them because of his unquenchable thrist for victory and almost inhuman ability to absorb punishment and come firing back - he was a true warrior.
Evander
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Post by Evander »

Chris hand picked them .
Eubank wanted nothing to do with overseas boxers.

Have you ever heard of the British fighter that is limited.
Most British are.

What do you think Calzaghe is doing exactly.

Benn was cool.
He had respect stateside.

Since Nigel ..you all snorted a line of charlie and waved your hands in the air to acid music and consoled one another.
Get real.
Half of your fighters don't even know what a jab is .... look at low level Mexicans compared to high level Brits in terms of style.
Your in the dark ages and need gimmicks to make your fighters or entertainers look good.
Shit is shit.
The Brits are just good at packaging shit.
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Post by TerribleTerry »

I dunno about Brits snorting charlie and waving their hands about mate - your post reads as though you have been on one long nasty LSD trip for the last 10 years or so. :D

Admittedly Eubank had a big hand in picking his opponents, especially during the sky deal but to rubbish all British fighters, esp one of the quality of Calzaghe is nonsence.

I admire Eubank for his toughness, mantality and warrior spiriot. His technique was far from perfect but he has shown more heart and thirst for battle then his more accomplished stateside rivals such as the washed up Roy Jones jnr, wouldnt you agree??,,
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Post by STP »

I don't think most of those performances you listed were that poor - Sherry was just awkward the way he'd hit and move, Stretch was a tall southpaw with an awkward stance, those were just awkward fights, kind of like Maussa, Collazo and Urango for Ricky Hatton, awkward.

He beat Malinga quite easily with very low effort (his head was clearly elsewhere that night and for obvious reasons).

Essett, that was more due to Jim Watt's negative commentary. Eubank said a few days later that he watched the tape and that he had 'perfect form' and how martial artists would come up to him and tell him how he inspired them in their training because he had such good form in the ring.

If you watch the Showtime interview after the second Close at King's Hall, the Yank tosser says something along the lines of how the American middleweights and super-middleweights haven't seen anything to worry them and Eubank explains his poor performances against Benn and Close saying something along the lines of how you have to take into consideration the circumstance and how you can't be at your best in every situation, that he was 'bone-dry from head to toe from first bell to last bell' at Old Trafford and that your muscles work best when they are warm, and how Belfast was overseas and said atleast he was prepared to fight outdoors or overseas - and still come through - unlike the Americans! He said he had 'jet lag' in the ring in Belfast because he only flew over a few hours before the fight!

In Sun City, BBBC officials had been horrified at finding Eubank's skin had turned Grey due to the drying out! So they made sure to monitor his weight regularly in his training for the Wharton fight so he wouldn't have to dry out and what was the result? From the worst performance of his career to the best performance of his career! So I think a lot of his poor performances or poor work came through the drying out process, the times he couldn't get motivated or had no reason to perform (to get critics off his back etc).

You'll notice he often followed a so-called 'poor' performance with a much better one - Sherry-Stretch (finished Stretch cleanly), Malinga-Jarvis (perfect KO), Essett-Thornton (a lot to do with the fact postman Tony was coming at him instead of running away like Essett), Benn II-Rocchigiani, Amaral-Storey (finished Sammy cleanly), Schommer-Wharton, Barrera-Alarcon.

Just a shame he never loved the game or had any desire to be great, because then he'd have trained hard all the time so his weight would be kept down and he wouldn't have had any poor performances and the Yanks would have been worried sick. But he'll argue - 'I made 15 million quid to keep me in new monocles, boxing is a mugs game'.
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Post by STP »

I can't see how he'd have 'jet lag' though from London to Belfast :) Maybe he meant he was sitting still too long too soon before the fight or something.
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Post by stujones »

Eubank was an accurate counter puncher (apart from the wild overhand rights he often threw) with many flaws in his style. If he wasn't accurate he was pretty poor (e.g. I thought his Calzaghe performance was brave but poor), he hated coming forward and he didn't like fighting at a pace. I have watched the Calzaghe and Collins rematch fights recently and have to say that Eubank was so much sharper in the Collins fight. He was almost a different fighter - just Collins was an animal that night and would not be denied.

Jim Watt's comments on Eubank being novice like when he missed a shot was an excellent assessment (he said this in the Benn rematch, although I disagree with the original poster as I thought this was a decent performance).

So someone like Wharton and Rochigianni - a come forward fighter without the intensity of a Collins or Calzaghe or the movement of say Nigel Benn in the rematch were ideal for Chris.

Add the fact that Eubank often had the "do enough to win" mentalitly post Watson - perhaps he feared Wharton's power and knew he needed to do more in Germany to beat Rochigiani - thats why these are his two best defences.
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Post by STP »

stujones wrote:Eubank was an accurate counter puncher (apart from the wild overhand rights he often threw) with many flaws in his style. If he wasn't accurate he was pretty poor (e.g. I thought his Calzaghe performance was brave but poor), he hated coming forward and he didn't like fighting at a pace. I have watched the Calzaghe and Collins rematch fights recently and have to say that Eubank was so much sharper in the Collins fight. He was almost a different fighter - just Collins was an animal that night and would not be denied.

Jim Watt's comments on Eubank being novice like when he missed a shot was an excellent assessment (he said this in the Benn rematch, although I disagree with the original poster as I thought this was a decent performance).

So someone like Wharton and Rochigianni - a come forward fighter without the intensity of a Collins or Calzaghe or the movement of say Nigel Benn in the rematch were ideal for Chris.

Add the fact that Eubank often had the "do enough to win" mentalitly post Watson - perhaps he feared Wharton's power and knew he needed to do more in Germany to beat Rochigiani - thats why these are his two best defences.
In the second Collins fight, he didn't look right at all. From what I remember (and I'm not sure if I've seen it since), Eubank looked weak and lethargic and couldn't get his shots off right, mentally he didn't seem motivated either, he was just smiling his ass off all fight while getting trounced and losing every round. Weird fornicator.
Greg Nicholas
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Post by Greg Nicholas »

At his best Chris was near-perfect, but then he'd go and throw one of those silly cricket-throwing right hands and look like a dick or miss a left hook and turn himself around 180 degrees or some shit.. :lol:
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Post by Raff The Frenchman »

because styles make fights...and some styles look outstanding against some, and rubbish against some others...
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Post by Autobarn »

Terry D wrote:
Evander wrote:Since Nigel ..you all snorted a line of charlie and waved your hands in the air to acid music and consoled one another.
We should follow your lead and sit there with our thumb-up our arses contributing very little to a topic and doing it really badly.

And people try to say boxing is not leaving Evander brain-damaged.

As for Chris he actually looks very good when countering with shorter punches and doing this in combinations. He did it in both the Watson fights.

He looked exceptionally poor when he wound that big right hand up. Remember him falling over against Malinga.

Gutsy fighter and as mentioned his fights were real events, often dire but they left you dying to know if he had squeezed through again.
thought that was what American heavyweights did when they couldn't come to terms with their success...you won't catch Calzaghe or Hatton doing that, snorting their careers away.

Have to say, Evander gets zero points for profound evocative prose - props to him for fitting three verbs in one sentence though. He may make it as a net writer if he can get his head out the sewer and if someone feels sorry enough for him.
Last edited by Autobarn on 05 Jul 2007, 13:44, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Ezzard »

...Acid music was pre-Benn, not post-Benn...

Eubank was annoying in that he really remained a domestic fighter and didn't seem interested in pushing himself against non UK world class fighters. BUT he was still a truly excellent fighter.

I agree that he could soak up punishment and come back into a fight. I always thought he had a stamina problem and looked to take time off in rounds with the posing etc... And I think he rarely went for broke for fear of burn out. The Watson tragedy must have also effected him.

Having read the posts on his weight problems (he always looked like the bigger man in his fights and the difference in size between him and Benn was always obvious) the stamina issues make sense.
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Post by J »

88-89 best of acid house beofre it morphed into hardcore til 92-93 then jungle and happy hardcore! then i stopped raving while i had a brain cell left. :TU:
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Post by STP »

Evander wrote:Chris hand picked them .
Eubank wanted nothing to do with overseas boxers.

Have you ever heard of the British fighter that is limited.
Most British are.

What do you think Calzaghe is doing exactly.

Benn was cool.
He had respect stateside.

Since Nigel ..you all snorted a line of charlie and waved your hands in the air to acid music and consoled one another.
Get real.
Half of your fighters don't even know what a jab is .... look at low level Mexicans compared to high level Brits in terms of style.
Your in the dark ages and need gimmicks to make your fighters or entertainers look good.
Shit is shit.
The Brits are just good at packaging shit.
Yeah US fans I speak to who followed boxing in the late 80s and 90s tell me that Benn is the only Brit they respect, though some bitch about hitting Barkley when he was down and 'rabbit punching' McClellan.
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Post by Old bones Ian »

J wrote:88-89 best of acid house beofre it morphed into hardcore til 92-93 then jungle and happy hardcore! then i stopped raving while i had a brain cell left. :TU:
yes but its always good to melt some now and again. :TU:
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