OK, ill give you the Rocky and Benn 1 fights, even the Henry Wharton one(if you forget that Henry only had one arm) but Jesus, this guy recieved more dodgy decision that Ayala, Jorrin and Nelson put together. I wont name them all but pay attention to the Sherry,Watson 1, Close(1 and 2), Benn 2 and Sugar boy Malinga fights. Total robberies perpetrated by the WBO to make sure they had a VISABLE champion.
Yet memories fade as time goes by, we now remember the arrogant Eubank winning despite us hoping he would be brutally knocked out. You all seem to hold him up to some ridiclous level when all he was was a good fighter, with an iron jaw who could only fight for 1-30 of a round and HATED it when you fought at your pace as his style would allow a fast paced fight.
Even worse, you blame his negativity on the Watson fight, like your trying to find an excuse for the bad decisions and tedious fights we had to endure.
Eubank, good fighter, not great and certainly no Nigel Benn
Why the constant overating of Chris Eubank??
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thepocketrocket
- Heavyweight
- Posts: 3283
- Joined: 16 Jan 2003, 06:26
Re: Why the constant overating of Chris Eubank??
Eubank - overated, yes maybe a tad. However, to say he's no Nigel Benn is going a bit the otherway (IMO).thepocketrocket wrote:OK, ill give you the Rocky and Benn 1 fights, even the Henry Wharton one(if you forget that Henry only had one arm) but Jesus, this guy recieved more dodgy decision that Ayala, Jorrin and Nelson put together. I wont name them all but pay attention to the Sherry,Watson 1, Close(1 and 2), Benn 2 and Sugar boy Malinga fights. Total robberies perpetrated by the WBO to make sure they had a VISABLE champion.
Yet memories fade as time goes by, we now remember the arrogant Eubank winning despite us hoping he would be brutally knocked out. You all seem to hold him up to some ridiclous level when all he was was a good fighter, with an iron jaw who could only fight for 1-30 of a round and HATED it when you fought at your pace as his style would allow a fast paced fight.
Even worse, you blame his negativity on the Watson fight, like your trying to find an excuse for the bad decisions and tedious fights we had to endure.
Eubank, good fighter, not great and certainly no Nigel Benn
Looking at the fights you've mentioned. Sherry - okay Eubank should have lost be disqualification there.
Watson 1 - Agreed I thought Eubank should have lost.
Close 1 - A close fight (no pun), a good performance by Ray.
Close 2 - No, Eubank won this one.
Malinga - I thought Eubank sneaked this one aswell.
So yes, perhaps he was over-rated. But in my opinion, if we discount McClennan, Eubank's opponents were better than Benn. If you think Eubank was gifted a decision in the Malinga fight, then please check out Malinga vs Benn 1. Even Malinga said he felt Eubank shaded their encounter, but believed he beat Benn both times.
As for Eubank vs Benn 2 - that again was a MIGHTY close fight, check out Barry McGuigan's final fight scorecard. I thought a draw was spot on. However, if anything dodgy happened there though, it was in favour of Benn, because Eubank was drawing on one card, leading by one on another going into the 12th. I appeared (to most) to be one of Eubank's biggest rounds, but these two cards scored it for Benn.
Yes, Steve Collins found the way to beat Eubank, and Calzaghe immitated Collins' style well. However, these are the only 2 times he's been truly beaten beyond doubt. He was cruelly robbed of a decision in the first Thompson bout, and the referee cost him in the 2nd one. If Ian John Lewis was in charge Eubank would have been Cruiserweight champion.
Your first statement is true, but if your calling Benn a level above Eubank then I have to disagree.
Much more of a case if you say Steve Collins - as he beat the pair of them (twice).
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thepocketrocket
- Heavyweight
- Posts: 3283
- Joined: 16 Jan 2003, 06:26
I would take De Witt, Barkley and going over to wopland and stopping Galvano over anything Eubank did.
I agree that Benn got a few shockers himself(the Malinga fight a prime example) but the heights of his career were much higher than anything Eubank did.
Eubank however is held way above Benn and I read in another post that no Middleweight could touch him.
Eubank could never have beaten McClellan, he didnt have the ability to get to THAT level. He was very 1D and to be consided top level you need to have the ability to move through the gears.
And Collins would have beaten them both at any time of their career
I agree that Benn got a few shockers himself(the Malinga fight a prime example) but the heights of his career were much higher than anything Eubank did.
Eubank however is held way above Benn and I read in another post that no Middleweight could touch him.
Eubank could never have beaten McClellan, he didnt have the ability to get to THAT level. He was very 1D and to be consided top level you need to have the ability to move through the gears.
And Collins would have beaten them both at any time of their career
Although it was always clear that Benn & Eubank would be well out of their depth against Jones Jr & Toney, Benn did have that one truly great performance against McClellan in defence of his WBC belt. But then Eubank did stop Benn and then drew with him in what was a very fair decision in my eyes.
So while Eubank wasn't a great champion, but he did prove himself against a great brawler.
So while Eubank wasn't a great champion, but he did prove himself against a great brawler.
Chris Eubank dominated the fledgling super-middleweight division in the 90's, which might explain why he is thought of so highly. Yes, Sven Ottke and Joe Calzaghe have also dominated the division, but we all know Joe has done so by virtue of some careful matchmaking and Ottke by refusing to leave home. He can't lose in Germany unless he gets knocked out. He should have lost to Thomas Tate in their first fight, but it went to the scorecards after Ottke suffered a terrible cut from a Tate right hand. Sven gave him a rematch of course and on paper, yes, he's the most dominant super-middle in history, but take him out of Germany and I just don't know.
Calzaghe is probably just as good.
Eubank fought better men in his prime than both of them in my opinion, including a fine win over Gracianio Rocchigiani in Germany, two wins over Michael Watson, as well as wins over Benn, Malinga, Lindell Holmes and a man many tipped to beat him, Tony Thornton. He's overrated as a fighter, yes. But as a super-middleweight, no.
Calzaghe is probably just as good.
Eubank fought better men in his prime than both of them in my opinion, including a fine win over Gracianio Rocchigiani in Germany, two wins over Michael Watson, as well as wins over Benn, Malinga, Lindell Holmes and a man many tipped to beat him, Tony Thornton. He's overrated as a fighter, yes. But as a super-middleweight, no.
Mauricio Amaral is the guy you are referring to. Eubank could look terrible in some fights, but put him under real pressure, and he showed he was all fighter.Bladder wrote:I seem to remember he also had a dodgy decision over some Brazilian I'd never heard of before and whose name I can't remember now.
That's him, and yes I agree with your second statement.bennie wrote:Mauricio Amaral is the guy you are referring to. Eubank could look terrible in some fights, but put him under real pressure, and he showed he was all fighter.Bladder wrote:I seem to remember he also had a dodgy decision over some Brazilian I'd never heard of before and whose name I can't remember now.
Jonathan Rendall reviews the book "Eubank" by Chris Eubank
The presence of Christopher Livingstone Eubank, pugilist, peacock and would-be poet, will endure far beyond his ring career - he already stars in the Channel 5 series At Home with the Eubanks. He has made a remarkable journey from a largely impoverished childhood, via an extended spell as a hate figure, into the hearts of the British public. This book does it justice.
He was brought up in Peckham, south London, and then the Bronx, with an itinerant period in between when he occupied himself by thieving from department stores and escaping children's homes. He landed on the unsuspecting British public as a boxer at a press conference in Holborn in 1988. It was organised by a Brighton garage owner, Keith Miles, Eubank's then manager.
Unfortunately, only one member of the press turned up: me, as it happens. You would think Eubank would have wanted to talk, but he didn't. He seemed bewildered and withdrawn. He spoke in an American accent, saying merely: "I'm sorry. I am not used to speaking to white people." Within a year, Miles was history and Eubank had re-invented himself as an almost Wodehousian "white man": an all-talking, Burberry-wearing English gentleman.
He must have thought it progress, but it was as yet unnoticed. The odds were still stacked against him. The boxing headlines were being hogged by Nigel "The Dark Destroyer" Benn and Michael "The Force" Watson. In his Burberrys, Eubank had to dodge ticket-collectors on the train from Brighton, to sit in the lobbies of big-shot London promoters. Some wouldn't bother to see him.
Victories over both Benn and Watson were to follow (the latter nearly costing Watson his life). The arenas were full, and Eubank was getting six figures per fight. His personal following remained minimal - his wife, Karron, his trainer, Ronnie. Those that filled the arenas were there to see the peacock get poleaxed.
Between the big fights he was criticised for taking on hand-picked opponents. This was true. He generated amazing business for himself against low-risk opposition. If there is a criticism of this book, it is that it plays up the abilities of some of these fighters.
Unlike, say, Benn and Watson, Eubank was not fed patsies on the way up. He'd had to claw his way, and it is not surprising that, once he had made it, he felt entitled to enjoy the fruits on offer. There is a tradition of the businessman pugilist, going back to Jack Johnson and Jack Dempsey in the early years of the last century, and Eubank was well aware of it. In many ways he was a throwback.
In his pomp, Eubank could be difficult. Once when I interviewed him at his home in Hove, he insisted I remove my vehicle from his drive because he found it unsightly. He then left me waiting for an hour while he "checked out" my "suspicious" credentials.
He could also be genuinely ludicrous, as in his batty soliloquies and aperçus. Yet underneath this lay a well-meaning soul and a vulnerability that made you fear for him among boxing's leeches and sultans. In his championship reign he was a prodigious spender, thinking nothing of block-booking Dorchester suites. He once adopted an elderly Oxford Street tramp, Max, and put him up for months.
The fear was that he would turn out like Battling Siki, a 1920s boxer-dandy who once walked his pet lion down the Champs-Élysées, and ended up murdered in Hell's Kitchen. But the fear has turned out to be unfounded. The offers roll in for Eubank. Recently, there was Gladiators, a Channel 5 re-match with Nigel Benn under Roman rules. There, Eubank got duped. He thought it was a glorified holiday. Benn had been training for three months.
Benn, a born-again Christian, did not show much charity, smashing the retired Eubank to the ground in a grotesque parody, correctly described by Eubank as "a vicious, undignified, humiliating and terrifying experience".
That is how many people would describe the professional boxing business, and it is strangely uplifting to learn exactly how Eubank escaped its dark vortex.
The presence of Christopher Livingstone Eubank, pugilist, peacock and would-be poet, will endure far beyond his ring career - he already stars in the Channel 5 series At Home with the Eubanks. He has made a remarkable journey from a largely impoverished childhood, via an extended spell as a hate figure, into the hearts of the British public. This book does it justice.
He was brought up in Peckham, south London, and then the Bronx, with an itinerant period in between when he occupied himself by thieving from department stores and escaping children's homes. He landed on the unsuspecting British public as a boxer at a press conference in Holborn in 1988. It was organised by a Brighton garage owner, Keith Miles, Eubank's then manager.
Unfortunately, only one member of the press turned up: me, as it happens. You would think Eubank would have wanted to talk, but he didn't. He seemed bewildered and withdrawn. He spoke in an American accent, saying merely: "I'm sorry. I am not used to speaking to white people." Within a year, Miles was history and Eubank had re-invented himself as an almost Wodehousian "white man": an all-talking, Burberry-wearing English gentleman.
He must have thought it progress, but it was as yet unnoticed. The odds were still stacked against him. The boxing headlines were being hogged by Nigel "The Dark Destroyer" Benn and Michael "The Force" Watson. In his Burberrys, Eubank had to dodge ticket-collectors on the train from Brighton, to sit in the lobbies of big-shot London promoters. Some wouldn't bother to see him.
Victories over both Benn and Watson were to follow (the latter nearly costing Watson his life). The arenas were full, and Eubank was getting six figures per fight. His personal following remained minimal - his wife, Karron, his trainer, Ronnie. Those that filled the arenas were there to see the peacock get poleaxed.
Between the big fights he was criticised for taking on hand-picked opponents. This was true. He generated amazing business for himself against low-risk opposition. If there is a criticism of this book, it is that it plays up the abilities of some of these fighters.
Unlike, say, Benn and Watson, Eubank was not fed patsies on the way up. He'd had to claw his way, and it is not surprising that, once he had made it, he felt entitled to enjoy the fruits on offer. There is a tradition of the businessman pugilist, going back to Jack Johnson and Jack Dempsey in the early years of the last century, and Eubank was well aware of it. In many ways he was a throwback.
In his pomp, Eubank could be difficult. Once when I interviewed him at his home in Hove, he insisted I remove my vehicle from his drive because he found it unsightly. He then left me waiting for an hour while he "checked out" my "suspicious" credentials.
He could also be genuinely ludicrous, as in his batty soliloquies and aperçus. Yet underneath this lay a well-meaning soul and a vulnerability that made you fear for him among boxing's leeches and sultans. In his championship reign he was a prodigious spender, thinking nothing of block-booking Dorchester suites. He once adopted an elderly Oxford Street tramp, Max, and put him up for months.
The fear was that he would turn out like Battling Siki, a 1920s boxer-dandy who once walked his pet lion down the Champs-Élysées, and ended up murdered in Hell's Kitchen. But the fear has turned out to be unfounded. The offers roll in for Eubank. Recently, there was Gladiators, a Channel 5 re-match with Nigel Benn under Roman rules. There, Eubank got duped. He thought it was a glorified holiday. Benn had been training for three months.
Benn, a born-again Christian, did not show much charity, smashing the retired Eubank to the ground in a grotesque parody, correctly described by Eubank as "a vicious, undignified, humiliating and terrifying experience".
That is how many people would describe the professional boxing business, and it is strangely uplifting to learn exactly how Eubank escaped its dark vortex.