If Steve Collins had come along earlier against Benn -Eubank?

That flattered Collins.

He barely beat a faded Eubank.

He only rematched Benn, due to injury in their first fight, where he twisted his ankle. So that can't even be celebrated as being a legit win.

It looks great on paper. But not in reality.

Benn was finished. He even admitted himself that he was kind of done, where he had to lay out a huge bet on himself, just to get motivated. He came out retirement after losing to Thulani Malinga.

So: Collins squeeked by a faded Eubank, before beating a washed Benn.

It wasn't some great feat.

Prime for prime, Collins certainly wasn't on a higher level.

 

You need to apply context though.

Eubank was extremely lucky to still have been undefeated going into the Collins fight. Go and see the fights against: Schommer, Benn and Close x 2.

Eubank admits himself that he should have lost the Benn rematch as well as the Schommer fight.

Benn was absolutely done. The tank was empty. He was at the end when he'd retired after losing against Malinga.

 

No boxer is ever going to be the same after the war Benn had with Gerald and do not sit here and act like Nigel wasn't stumbling around the ring like a drunk because his legs were gone.
Chris was not in his prime vs Collins and everyone knows that so stop with the BS.

 

You want the context all one way, Eubank was younger than Collins, and Benn was the same age. And let’s not pretend that Collins wasn’t in wars himself or that he had some style that kept him fresh. His career was over by 97 after he received news he could suffer a brain bleed. He faced both men two times apiece and went 4-0. Not much more he could do. As I said in my initial post I believe he would have split with Eubank and sweeps Benn.

 

Chris was two years younger than Collins and Collins himself was in his own wars. Sounds like sour grapes from fanboys that Collins went 4-0. But it’s ok. It’s All good.

 

Eubank had far more mileage. Both physically and mentally. Collins was clearly the fresher fighter.

Eubank wasn’t the same after the Watson fight, and he was fighting every few months.

What wars did Collins have?

Yes, he couldn’t do any more. Their career trajectories meant that they couldn’t really have met earlier.

Nobody is saying that Collins ducked earlier fights or anything.

The point is: Through no fault of his own, he beat a faded Eubank and a shot Benn.

They aren’t impressive wins.

It wasn’t some great feat.

 

Why is it sour grapes?

If you’re knowledgeable of these guys and the era, you must know that Benn was done. And that the first Benn win can’t even be celebrated at all.

 

I just do not understand why people try to pretend things when all the facts are there.
Collins did VERY WELL to salvage a boxing career that was in very bad shape and not too many could have done that.
Chris had 52 pro bouts and Collins had 39.
Nigel had 47 so out of the three Collins had less.

 

What was an incredible feat was the way Collins put his head down and went to work reinventing himself.
Gone was the semi- boxer who moved laterally and in its place a non stop punching machine who marched forward.
To do that after you have failed speaks volumes for someones drive and determination to achieve success.

 

Collins was a good fighter with a very awkward style. In his prime had a quite a multi-faceted style, though it was held back by sloppy execution of most elements. He's always reminded me somewhat of Gene Fullmer in that when he fought fighters he wasn't stronger or more skilled than he'd do quite a lot of unorthodox mobile boxing and clubbing arm punching in bunches after outside lunges. He's also a fighter that's often said to have had a great chin, but I think it was more good than great...I saw him hurt quite a few times and not always against hard punchers.

My thoughts on some of the fights mentioned.

McCallum vs Collins: learning fight for a pre-prime Collins. He's beaten very clearly on the cards, but it's quite an interesting fight.

- first half sees a cautious Collins being shut out, culminating with McCallum making a considerable effort to get a very ragged looking and probably hurt Collins out of there. At this point Collins looks clearly worse than a similarly pre-peak Watson did against Mike.

- McCallum fails to stop him and instead of wilting, Collins shows his potential by finding a second wind and turning pressure fighter. Second half of the fight is hard fought and quite even; McCallum looked like he'd almost punched himself out, is strained looking at times and this is the first fight of his where we start to see stamina issues and hints of a physical decline beginning. Ends up a better performance than Watson's, though Mike did have the reasonable excuse of being out the ring for over a year to go alongside only have slightly more experience, which the moronic british boxing press that stupidly made him favourite should perhaps have taken more notice of.

Sweet Reggie vs Collins: I remember this as a hard fight to score that could have gone either way but was probably Johnson's by a point or two.

- Both fighters in their prime. Collins looks better and fights a more assured, multi-faceted bout than he does against McCallum, where he seemed to turn the tide through sheer youthful physicality.

- Johnson looked the more skilled and talented of the two, but he sometimes has a sloppyness to him as well and always had issues keeping sharp defensively and offensively from round to round.

- Collins has good timing, but is let down by his sloppy arm punching. A lot of the time these just aren't quality scoring punches.

Kalambay vs Collins:

-This fight sometimes gets called a controversial one or even a robbery, but I can never understand why. Sure, Collins throws about three times as many punches as the aging kalambay, but he hits next to nothing but gloves, arms and air all fight long. I couldn't give him more than four rounds even with the activity advantage he maintains for a lot of the fight. Lots of cuffing and slapping with no leverage when he gets up close. It's a beautiful defensive performance by Kalambay.

- I don't agree that Kalambay was outright shot, though he was certainly clearly past his prime and rapidly approaching the end of his career. You could see that in his previous fight (the rematch with Graham) which was a bruising back and forth war between two fighters on borrowed time that no longer have nearly the same reflexes (or durability in the frequently hurt Graham's case). However, Kalambay manages to roll the years back quite a bit in terms of defensive and counterpunch/jab timing in this bout, so while he doesn't have the offensive workrate or overall precision of the late 80s, it's a good "last hurrah" effort from someone that looks formidable, not Collins labouring against a static old man with little to offer. His timing and workrate then looks gone for good against Pyatt and he retires.

- Collins doesn't have the footwork or straight lead/combo precision of even that past prime version of Graham.

- Collins gets hurt in this fight a few times. staggered with one of Kalambay's trademark uppercuts and looks bothered by bodyshots a few times. This is during a 2-3 round period in the middle of the fight where he gets outright outfought and not just outboxed/picked off.

Eubank vs Collins I:

- This is an interesting, very good fight that I thought Eubank sealed with his knockdown and rally. Collins again has a lot of issues landing good flush scoring punches.

-Collins in his prime at the new weightclass fights similarly to how he did against Johnson and Kalambay; Eubank also in his usual style. I don't think Eubank was necessarily past his prime, he was coming off a fine performance against plodding, but dangerous left-hooker Henry Wharton and actually looks better here than he has done in quite a few of the defences over the last half of his reign, where he's frequently struggling with the weight and often shows questionable stamina and a lot of increasingly bad timing issues with his offensive output. Likely he prepared better for this one, with it being a more high profile bout; he'd have lost it if he fought as badly as he did in several other fights, including the Benn rematch, imo. So I see this as a fight between two prime fighters, but where Eubank absolutely should have moved up to 175 after it.

- Collins once again proving he can be hurt

Collins vs Eubank II:

- Six months later and this time there's two big differences. First of all, Collins changes his style and adopts an all out one dimensional swarming/mauling approach; secondly, Eubank looks like his issues with the weight have returned with a vengeance and he's as inaccurate and inactive as he was against journeymen challengers like Schommer and Amaral. How much of that was purely Collins change of style, and how much was due to 168 just not being suitable for any kind of consistency, YMMV. I tend to think Eubank had a good few years left in him if he'd campaigned at 175, it's the weight issues that made for the extent of the loss.

- I don't think this was a close fight at all. Collins mauls him and wins widely. The approach is ugly, open and lacking skill, but it was relentless and very effective against Eubank's flaws.

- Collins was good enough in his original style at 160/168 to always give the peak Eubank tough, close fights, but I tend to think he'd come up slightly short more often than not. I'm not entirely sure what to make of swarmer Collins vs the best 168 Eubank...probably another hard, close fight, but Collins would be vulnerable to getting hurt repeatedly with sharper counters.

Collins vs Benn I and II:

- the least interesting or meaningful fights discussed. Benn was cooked after the medieval brutality of the G-man fight. Balance going, punching effectiveness diminished, and didn't seem to have the drive any more. He doesn't offer much resistance. I don't think these fights give us any relevant info of how a fight between the two in their primes would go at all, either at 160 or 168.

 

I don't see how you can say that to be honest. Eubank was embarrassingly mentally beaten by Collins. He was turned into a mental midget. Complaining about some hippie giving Collins meditation. He was so mentally rattled by Collins it was insane. It's actually shameful. It's one of the worst cases of mental midgetry I've seen in a fighter in boxing history. He really behaved like a completely p*ssy around Collins. You need to go watch their build up. Eubank even said things later on like "Collins said he fought for all people of Ireland and asked me who I fought for and he won the fight at that moment". "Collins was hypnotised not to feel pain and to hear Daffy Duck any time I talked"

It's really beyond embarrassing and shows insane mental weakness on Eubanks part. Yeah he beat Watson but he lost the first fight and should have lost the second if Watson wasn't stupid enough to run into that uppercut when he was one or two punches away from winning. Benn was a limited guy that Eubank could feel confident he could outbox. Collins was super limited but simply outclassed Eubank in mental warfare. I think Collins was probably laughing about how stupid and weak Eubank was to buy into all of his sh*t in the build up.

Make no mistake, Collins over Eubank is one of the most embarrassing cases of a fighter being beaten mentally by another fighter.

Can you imagine someone like Riddick Bowe complaining about another fighter getting hypnotised. lol

 

One point, what exactly was brutal about Benn McClellan for Benn? He got dropped in r1 and caught again later in the fight but he won every other round. McClellan couldn't get out of the way of his right hand because he came into the fight brain damaged. If you actually watch the fight and don't buy into the hype, Benn wins every round other than the ones he got dropped in. It's a pretty easy fight for him. It just shows how bad McClellan got brain damaged by Jackson in their first fight. Benn was crap against Collins I agree but he was also crap against McClellan. McClellan was just done. I have no idea how his chin even held up to take the punishment he took from Benn in that fight. He must have went through hell in the ring.

 

That's just a lot of hype. McClellan was god awful that night. Watch the fight back and notice how easy it is for Benn.

 

Because it fits your narrative. Benn absorbed tremendous punishment from one of the hardest punchers in boxing and only Benns grit kept him on his feet.
If Collins would have fought the G man I promise you he gets starched.