BoxRec

The WBC could be gone soon, that will screw his #1 ranking and more or less put him back to square one. If you were Eastman what would you do. He needs a big fight time is running out.

Eastman just needs to fight. After a succession of easy wins, he took a lot of shots from Sergey Tatevosyan in his last fight in January and clearly didn't relish the experience.
Hennessy once dressed him up as a cowboy for publicity purposes. The cowboy is gun shy....and needs to get back on his horse.

Start making a lot of noise and insult Bernard Hopkins on as many websites as possible. Even better, do what Tarver did to Roy Jones to secure his fight. Turn up at the after fight press conference when Hopkins beats Oscar and start heckling him from the crowd. Get his promoter to get Eastman as many interviews on as many websites as possible and get his name out there.

Lefthookhappy19 wrote:Start making a lot of noise and insult Bernard Hopkins on as many websites as possible. Even better, do what Tarver did to Roy Jones to secure his fight. Turn up at the after fight press conference when Hopkins beats Oscar and start heckling him from the crowd. Get his promoter to get Eastman as many interviews on as many websites as possible and get his name out there.

Yeah, but the heckling and taunting are the easy part - will he want to do the hard part as well, i..e train his ass off and beat some top fighters in order to legitimately deserve a title shot? Tarver did.

Robert Allen of course deserved his shot more than Eastman does. He gave it his all as well

He needs a match with someone like Sturm, Ikeke or even Carl Daniels to raise his profile. These have got a chance of being made as all three would be of the opinion that a victory over Eastman would put them in line for Hopkins' 20th defence and a big pay day. I'd say he handles the Americans and turns over Sturm with strength after eating a few jabs.

Trouble with Eastman is that it's diminishing returns for his promoters - he doesn't bring much to the table other than a default reputation as the second best active middleweight, he doesn't draw lots of punters, and he is decent enough to upset your career applecart

Being more active wouldn't hurt either.

Rather than calling out Hopkins, he should be making a case for why Hop should fight him. He needs to be more active.

I fear Eastman will never get another title shot.

Has anyone mentioned: get a better promoter?

Sureky he should fight Jorge Sendra next due to him pulling out.

I don't think you can lay all the blame on the promoter, it's also because Eastman isn't realistic, he just moans constantly, all the while not doing anything to enhance his own case for a title shot. He looked pretty poor against Tatevosyan, and he needs to be fighting more regularly. Admittedly there aren't that many good fights for him in the middleweight division.

James, I agree and disagree. He does moan, but so does everyone else. Complaining and making noise is how Tarver got his shot at Jones, after all.

He must be really really hard to match.

And he did look awful last time out. Tatevosyan could easily have been given that.

Coconut wrote:James, I agree and disagree. He does moan, but so does everyone else. Complaining and making noise is how Tarver got his shot at Jones, after all.

Complaining and making noise...

...and beating former Jones victim Reggie Johnson.

...and beating Eric Harding in their rematch (his upset win over Tarver in their first fight in June 2000 was what got Harding a mandatory shot at Jones.)

...and beating former Jones rival Montell Griffin.

See the theme here?

Eric the Viking wrote:

Coconut wrote:James, I agree and disagree. He does moan, but so does everyone else. Complaining and making noise is how Tarver got his shot at Jones, after all.

Complaining and making noise...

...and beating former Jones victim Reggie Johnson.

...and beating Eric Harding in their rematch (his upset win over Tarver in their first fight in June 2000 was what got Harding a mandatory shot at Jones.)

...and beating former Jones rival Montell Griffin.

See the theme here?

So going by this logic Eastman has to beat RJJ???

or maybe Clinton Mitchell?