Eubank/Benn/Watson/Collins

I think that whatever the outcome, there’d have been a demand for a rematch.

 

Brilliant point about Windrush. Kudos for that. It gave us athletes and sportspeople that combined grace and athleticism with the traditional British pluck and grit.

 

Front page of the Sun was ‘Benn-Eubank III’ a few days after Benn-McClellan, touted for Wembley

There was nothing stopping Eubank v Jones in the new Nynex Arena with Steve Foster, Carl Thompson and Robin Reid on the undercard

 

Kris Akabusi(sp?) I missed out

Paul Ince too

 

I consider that era of early 90s middleweights my boxing fan apprenticeship. It wasn’t until a few years later that I started following what was going on on the world stage but in 1990 and 1991, we didn’t really need to know who the other best fighters in the middleweight and super middleweight division were because we had Benn, Eubank and Watson. Plus there were a group of British title contenders lining up as well.

Both Eubank-Watson fights are indelibly imprinted in my memory. It really was like the whole country was watching. Nationally televised, it didn’t matter a bit it was for a paper world title, the fights were much bigger than the belts they were nominally fighting for. It was enough to be considered the best middleweight or super middleweight in the country - the rest of the world didn’t matter.

 

Yeah. So the demand would have been there if not for the quick downfall after the fight with Gerald. Everyone knew that he’d nothing left after the Malinga fight.

It would have been a big ask to have gotten Roy to Manchester in 1996. Maybe if there’d have been a huge demand, with huge money, in a unification or to have become the undisputed etc. But there’s a lot of things that would have needed to have happened beforehand. All the main belts were split back then, and Eubank wasn’t big in the U.S.

 

Jones’ ambition was to fight in England, after attending the Benn-Watson fight in ‘89. His new team reached out to Eubank as soon as his father left, before HBO signed him, and Eubank refused to face him after acquiring tapes of his fights from handheld footage.

 

As Jones said in Sept 93 ‘The only fighter who can give me a challenge is Chris Eubank. I know how to beat the others but won’t know how to beat Eubank until I’m in the ring with him.’

 

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14:05

 

In actual fact, I think Akabusi, along with Fashanu, came from Nigeria rather than the West Indies with the Windrush. But your point remains as strong. Our sports scene received a massive injection of talent, greater than anything we had ever seen, once the children of the immigrants had reached maturity. The middleweight scene, with the Benn-Watson-Eubank triumvirate, was among the highlights.

It was a treat to see and we had moved on enough as a society by that point, from the dark days of the 70s and early 80s, to recognise them as the British citizens that they were and to be proud of their achievements.

I think it was brilliant that, for nearly everyone, the highlight of England's World Cup 90 song was the bit where John Barnes did his rap. Nobody cared that the best bit of In-ger-lund's song had a broad Jamaican accent.

 

I forgot. Ince was Nigel Benn's cousin.

 

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Must see TV for this thread. I've posted it in another tread so sorry if I seem a bit of a one trick pony. Great exchange between Collins and Eubank.

 

Yeah Nigel looked out for Paul on the streets of Ilford. Paul got no trouble come his way when he’d say he was Nigel Benn’s cousin in the late 70s/early 80s.

 

Eubank owns Steve there.

 

Graham fought for world titles on three seperate occasions, he was finished when challenged Brewer at 168, but he fought Jackson and McCallum while in his prime, he also lost to Kalambay twice, he fought the best of his era except Hagler and Nunn, maybe he should have fought Eubank but the WBO title wasn`t that respected back then.