When he was out training the UAE boxing team in Abu Dhabi a while back Eubank gave an interesting insight to his early career... "I remember when I was 19, 20 years old in this business and I couldn't get opponents. "It was a particular situation where the managers of new professionals with winning records wouldn't put their man in with me upon viewing tapes of my boxing. "An old professional with a losing record required payment from a promoter, and I couldn't sell tickets for a promoter because I didn't have friends to sell them to. I was a loner, I had no friends. "I was so hungry at the time. It was a nightmare. It was maybe a mistake on the part of Adonis Torres, my manager at the time, for me to make my professional debut on a televised card, a taped card. "I was quite good, you see. I could box and move very well. "All it did was fuel me to train even harder to learn and master the total set of skills." "I believe I was ripped off by judges in New York in my amateur career and I remember being stitched up by managers and promoters in the United Kingdom when I was trying to break in, I was young in the game. "A final straw of sorts might have been when American television didn't even bother with my fight against Nigel Benn in 1990 because they thought I'd 'go' just like all those previous opponents of his. "They hadn't even seen me fight, I'm sure. "So, when you're screwed around in a field for years and years and years and then you're calling the shots and becoming a phenomenon, and you've got there the hard way, ofcourse there's gratification, at the time. "My mind-set was then: 'I'm using this field as a platform.' One became bigger than boxing. I reversed that negative bitter into a positive better. "I was the cream as a person as well as a boxer and that was wholly with truth and integrity. That's not arrogance - I say wholly with truth and integrity." "I was able to flip through the net because nobody recognised me. It's the best way. I had it hard. "I came to the United Kingdom looking for a break in boxing, but because I literally didn't have any money, I had to shoplift. "And then I'd fly back to New York to escape the authorities and return a few months later, still looking for a break in boxing. "That went on for a few years, it all changed when I bumped into Barry Hearn. He saw that I had charisma and the right mind-set and gave me some money, and it all went uphill." "The best sparring I ever had was when I didn't have a reputation. Reputation is a killer. Money is an undertaker. You have to earn a rank. "I'd travel to New York gyms, I'd travel to London gyms, and nobody knew me and so I could cater for myself in the sparring. "Often I would just load up, I would take blows. That's when you're learning. "By the time 1989, 1990 was on the scene and I was set in the United Kingdom and I was getting fights and getting on ITV occasionally, I'd come out of a gym changing room with my headguard already on to make sure I was unrecognised to sparring partners." "I beat Anthony Logan - I was a poverty-stricken novice and he was number-sixteen with the WBC."
Eubank was the fighter that I seen most when I was younger. Those battles with Collins, Benn, Watson etc were all on TV. Simply don't get fights like that nowadays, and when we do get them they are few and far between.
There were so many though, so many. Watson x 2, Benn x 2, Thompson x 2, Collins x 2, Calzaghe, Rocchigiani, Wharton. Huge fights, great battles. All of them. Most of those nights he threw mostly 3's and 4's instead of 1's and 2's. [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAIkcHizHus[/ame]
Just found this... http://www.talksport.net/mediaplaye...7642&c=&t=&rssPodcast=&podcastid=&mediaType=1 He admits terrestrial TV was largely to thank for his fame and fortune etc and that today's lads are unlucky with the lack of coverage..
Training Valuev!? http://www.talksport.net/mediaplaye...8718&c=&t=&rssPodcast=&podcastid=&mediaType=1
My kids were too young to have seen both in their prime, but probably know more about about them having watched stuff on on the internet than most current British fighters. Probably says a lot about how TV has no interest in boxing these days. With the demise of Setanta and Buncey being off air, thank gawd for Sky and Friday Fight Night. But great to watch these two... even in something as cheesy as this! Cheers mate, ta for posting this link.
