Is Steve Collins greater than Nigel Benn and Chris Eubank?

Is Barkley greater than Hearns? :conf

 

You've got to respect the Celtic wife beater for taking on some of the tough challenges Eubank and Benn stayed well away from though.

Taking on McCallum with about 15 fights...Sweet Reggie Johnson and going to italy to try and take Kalambay's european title.Eubank and Benn stayed away from those kind of matchups, being given an easy outlet to do so via the WBO and supermiddle.

 

Collins fighting the master Kalambay for peanuts with no UK or US coverage, and in the same month Benn beat a far inferior fighter in Galvano on the same grounds for the WBC in front of 10+million viewers in UK alone to set up a multitude of £1million paydays. Collins was broke.

 

He was outboxed against Dan Schommer. That was largely down to weight-making combined with Schommer's awkward southpaw stance. That's only one in 52 fights.

Eubank was a maverick talent. Awesome, awesome ability.

 

Is Tarver greater than Jones? :think

 

Jones and Hearns are genuine ATGs. I obviously see your point but are Benn and Eubank's resumes really that much deeper alike the two comparisons you drew?

 

I think Eubank was special. He was the total package, or very near. To me his big problem was that he fought up or down to the level of competition which made for closer fights than he really had to have. That and later on he let guys off the hook that he could have smashed (Collins and Thompson come to mind).

 

Neither of them (Benn or Eubank) is on par with a Jones or Hearns in term of ATG status, but they were comparably removed from their respective peaks in their eight matches with Collins, Tarver, and Barkley.

 

Nine matches.

 

I think people look at Steve Collins from the British perspective and think of him a some guy who just came along and beat Eubank and Benn when they were perhaps in decline (Eubank) or almost certainly shot (Benn).

Actually, Collins had paid his dues in America years earlier, going the distance with McCallum and narrowly losing to Reggie Johnson in title fights. He'd fought the same level of opposition as Eubank at least, and was reasonably competitive against fighters who were arguably better than the British duo.

Funnily enough, Eubank - and even Benn to some extent - were largely underrated and ignored by the Americans at the time. Now, they might have become somewhat overrated at the expense of some forgotten fighters of that era.

 

Nice post

 

Come off it, Eubank was great on his night but he also looked amateurish at times coming forward and fighting southpaws, looking silly missing with the right hand by a country mile. A special fighter is a fighter who can deal with any style put in front of them eg: Floyd Mayweather Pernell whitaker and Eubank was not one of them.

 

Eubank seemed to deal with Ronnie Essett, one of the best movers in boxing, very well by closing the gap through stepping in with jabs and evading counters if fell short.

Dan Sherry was awkward with fast feet but the canvas was so loose that night it wasn't possible to shimmy in and shuffle forward. So Chris just walked in, covered up and countered at the right times with a heavy blow - that's all he could do, due to the ring canvas.

Very rarely did Eubank use that swinging loopy right, his right hands were mostly very short and very sneaky down the pipe.

 

That was the heyday for Brits from 160-168.

Benn
Eubank
Watson
Pyatt
Wharton
Close
Collins
Reid

Really great days.

 

Simply no the wins over benn count for very little although the win over eubank is better eubank had slipped a level at thier best I can't see Collins beating eubank and certainly not benn