BoxRec

My particular field was pugilism. I lost my first fight in 30 seconds at a club in the Bronx and ended up setting almost every record there is in the game. I'm here to inspire, that's my passion. If you apply yourself correctly to any field, with focus and integrity, success, in a way, is just around the corner. But you need persistence.

In my first fight as a professional, my purse was 250 dollars. The British public got their first glimpse of me at a hotel near Gatwick Airport, against Darren Parker, in front of 30 or 40 people, that lasted 80 seconds. My first televised fight in the United Kingdom was on BBC2 at 1am and had viewing figures of around 50000. I was living in a 15 pound-a-week bedsit. And I went on to set almost every record there is in the business. That's my position of strength. While I was champion, it was a platform. Now it's a position of strength. Look into my eyes; you see strength.

I always advise people to stop and smell the flowers, I wish I did. I was too immersed in dealing with the gale of the press, the criticism and all that, when really it could have been a fun game. I fight a brawler with neither Benn's astonishingly abnormal power or Watson's astonishingly abnormal pace and put in a good fight and suddenly everyone's saying I'm the best. Then four stinkers and you're one of the worst again. Then a good one and everyone's saying you're the best. Another four stinkers and everyone says you're one of the worst again, a good one again and everyone says you're the best. It's all good fun, it's a good game, atleast it should have been a game.

In whatever industry you are in, when success does come your way, as it will if you apply yourself correctly, do stop to smell the roses when you can.

At the end of the day, I was a junkie from January 1990. When those beats of Tina Turner's song started, it was nothing but 100% pure adrenalin. And you might as well be a junkie, because you're hooked on it. You're hooked on walking down that aisle, with the crowd reaching for all they're worth to touch you, climbing those steps and prowling that apron, with the crowd craning their necks to get a glimpse of you, and vaulting over those ropes as the attention of the arena, the nation and hundreds of millions. Or soaking up hate like a human sponge and allowing impulsive obnoxiousness to come out of that - which helps your focus as well, because you don't even attempt to control impulse. You're hooked on that.

I've walked with pride since I was eight or nine years old, no matter how difficult my circumstances, a facet I must have took from my father in that he wouldn't let anything weigh him down, so you're hooked as well on being yourself but trying to project to the rafters, as in just getting hold of that volume switch and turning it right up *motions*.

The Ultimate Fighting? Like caged animals, it's barbaric. I strolled into the one in Manchester in England a while back, stood and watched a couple of those guys holding eachother on the floor for a couple of minutes before turning around and walking out. I find it tedious. There's little art involved, little beauty, little poetry... little psychology even. It's blood-thirsty and doesn't tickle my fancy. I don't see the attraction. Boxing is the highest form of fighting, anyway, because you have to learn how to absorb punishment before you can dish it.

In my peak I believe I'd have taken a lot of them, because these gentlemen are blood-thirsty and always in position to attack, and the openings for me to land a perfect punch are unbounding. I also had, through development, encompassing amplitude in regard to flexibility on top of my constitution of strength, and understood the art of war as well as positioning and escape in regard to foot movement. So, yes, I'm quite sure I'd have taken a lot of them, I'll go with that. But some of the more skilled practitioners, jujitsu masters and so forth, I probably wouldn't last one round with, but they'd have to pass me out.

But there's enough room in the world to have both boxing and the Ultimate Fighting run side-by-side, as long as they don't let the Ultimate Fighting become plagued by dodgy promoters sucking the scene dry.

Well if he (Bruce Lee) had boxing gloves on, then it would be a different fight. It depends on what arena we are in. If it is a boxing arena and with gloves then the dynamics of boxing is always the same. So, a little good one finds it very difficult to beat a good big one.

Philosophically from a thinking point of view; if you have a line of animals that are continuously matched together and bred of strong blood lines, an individual brought from this pedigree and then another line of person of no pedigree - so they don't have body muscle mass, they don't have dense bone structures, just normal human animals - then obviously from a philosophical point of view this one which was bred is going to be stronger, if that individual from that blood line trains, doesn't smoke, doesn't drink, does all the work; it is more likely to beat a person from a weaker blood line, or blood line that hasn't been bred.

Yes, and it works the same as you move up in class. So, if you have a good brawler and a good boxer, the boxer is likely to win. If you have a brilliant brawler and a brilliant boxer, again the boxer is likely to win. If you have a bad, as in not so technically skilled brawler and a not so technically skilled boxer, the not so technically skilled boxer should win, 9 times in 10. If you have a brilliant brawler and a good boxer, only then it's evened out.

Through clenched fists and putting their fists in front of their forehead. This is good, but better is opening hands and cupping both sides of forehead. See the Watson-Benn fight in Finsbury Park for perhaps the best defence seen in a four-cornered circle.

Well then I'd say these people are not very smart; Watson twice, Benn twice, Rocchigiani and a host of young unbeaten prospects, all in three or four years while earning 10's of millions. It's doesn't get any better than that. Though I'll be the first to admit that after Watson 2 I actually boxed cautiously for two or three years after that.

Tony Thornton was a more than worthy mandated challenger. He beat Merqui Sosa, a rough and tough New Yorker who nobody - including me - would get in with, and should have got the decision against Steve Collins with American judging because of his aggression, or even a cuts stoppage. Every knockdown he'd scored in his career was through his right hand punch, so I had to be weary of that. He had strength of constitution and strength of resolve; highest respects paid to him.

Material things lack proper substance. What means something is one's virtue and I wouldn't change a great deal of anything I've ever done since I was 16.

Terry D wrote:

Raff The Frenchman wrote:Eubank was a great fighter, its a disgrace to see him talk that kind of shit...

Yes, he was always so sensible and considered in the old days.

STP wrote: And what are all these records??

STP wrote:It does get better than that, Chris: Herol Graham, Mike McCallum, Michael Nunn, James Toney, Roy Jones, Gerald McClellan, Tim Littles, Frank Liles, Reggie Johnson, Julian Jackson, Bernard Hopkins, Iran Barkley. You fought none of them, and they were all there. You stupid twat!

And what are all these records??

Crew2 wrote:

STP wrote:It does get better than that, Chris: Herol Graham, Mike McCallum, Michael Nunn, James Toney, Roy Jones, Gerald McClellan, Tim Littles, Frank Liles, Reggie Johnson, Julian Jackson, Bernard Hopkins, Iran Barkley. You fought none of them, and they were all there. You stupid twat!

And what are all these records??

HEROL AND NUNN WERE MOVING SOUTHPAWS W/ GREAT SPEED AND BORING, BORING STYLES ... CAN'T BLAME CHRIS REALLY, CAN U ?

TONEY AND JONES WERE ALWAYS LIKELY, MAYBE AS EUBANKS LAST FIGHT, BENN BEAT MCCLENNAN, LITTLES AND LILES WEREN'T BIG NAMES AT ALL, I BELIEVE EUBANK WANTED TO FIGHT JACKSON BEFORE BENN BUT HEROL GOT IT, WHO WAS HOPKINS BCK THEN ?? AND BARKLEY EUBANK SAID HE WOULDN'T FIGHT UNLESS HE WAS MANDATORY BECAUSE HE KNEW GUYS FRM SOUTH BRONX WOULD RATHER DIE THAN LOSE

CHRIS'S RESUME IS ALITTLE UNDER RATED, BENN WAS ARGUABLY NO.1. AFTER THE BARKLEY FIGHT, IT WAS BENN OR MCCALLUM ON FORM SEEING HOW POOR NUNN LOOKED AGAINST BARKLEY AND STARLING, WATSON WAS EXCELLENT AND GAVE MCCALLUM ALL HE COULD HANDLE DESPITE HAVING TOTAL RING RUST ND NO TIMING, AS WELL AS OBLITERATING ERROL CHRISTIE, LINDELL HOLMES WAS ALSO V.GOOD AND ONLY LOST ONCE IN 5 YRS, ROCCHIGIANI WASN'T V.GOOD BUT HAD A GREAT RECORD AND WAS BEATING DARIUS MICHELCHEVSKI, WHILE UNKNOWN SCHOMMER LOOKED REALLY GOOD IN THE FIGHT ITSELF ! COLLINS WASN'T BAD, AND CHRIS WON THAT FIRST FIGHT