[url]http://www.metro.co.uk/showbiz/interviews/760-chris-eubank[/url] 60 SECONDS EXTRA!: Former WBO super middleweight champ Chris Eubank is one of Britain's great eccentrics. Since retirement, the monocled mauler is forging a TV career and is about to star in Five's At Home With The Eubanks. He is also set to appear in Gladiator: Benn Vs Eubank - a one-off show reuniting him with former adversary Nigel Benn, also on Five. [url]What do you think of Chris Eubank - tell us on our message boards[/url] Why let cameras into your house? Are you mad? No. I used to box. I used to box for a living. But, more importantly, I boxed with Nigel Benn, but, more importantly than that, I looked him in the eye and he's the most terrifying man I've ever met. He's the school bully you always avoided, because he's like a piece of mahogany with teeth, growling at you. Are you with me? Once you've done that, do you understand what a privilege it is to actually do something like this? So this is less scary than Nigel Benn? No. It's not less scary. This is a privilege, it is an honour, it is the greatest fun there is for me. If I met a fairy this afternoon and she said: 'Right, you have one wish.' I'd say: 'Thank you, but I've had the one wish I want. I've had a camera crew following me around for nine months and I don't need anything else.' That's it, I've done what I wanted to do. Why do people want to know about Chris and Karron Eubank? I don't assume they do want to know a great deal about us. It's just television; its something people can watch on TV, after coming home from work. What we've attempted to do here, I suppose, is make people think about parenting. We've attempted to keep people watching by provoking thought in regards to how you do this; how we should live together. Are you conscious there's a camera around? You're always acting whether you know it or not. If your real disposition is to behave terribly, it's still an act. My view is, I'm being me. I've been around cameras for 13 years, and there's nothing more lucid than actually having to fight a man in front of the cameras, and look cool doing it - which I was an expert at. How much are we really delving into your life? Everything. Apart from what goes on behind closed doors with my wife. Apart from me using the bathroom, apart from my wardrobe. Why not? The wardrobe can come over as obnoxious. It's like driving a truck, wearing a monocle, carrying a cane, wearing jodhpurs 60 SECONDS EXTRA!: or the vehicle that I prefer to drive, simply because, not many people have the courage to actually do it. Anybody can drive a car, to drive a truck takes courage, cajones. That's OK as that's my outward look on fashion. A man can't wear more than one pair of shoes at a time, so if he sees that I have more than two pairs of shoes it might not endear me to him. And the objective is to endear yourself to the audience. Who wears the trousers, you or Karron? She wears the dress, and I wear the trousers, but the dress is very important. A mother? 60 SECONDS EXTRA!: I can't compete with her; it's not fair. I can fight. Find the next hardest sport, let's say, American football, then just under American football is rugby. When you get to American football, 15 rungs up is boxing. The next hardest is mothering children which is 15 rungs above boxing. So, I can't compete with her. The only reason men have the upper hand is a simple case of bullying. I can't do what she does. How do I know? Because I'm a fighter. Because women are superior... not superior... let me not say that, because that might seem like I'm sucking up and I want to get across a very valid point here. Women are .. The stronger sex? I don't want to say that. Women are... more... intellectually powerful. And she does give you a good ticking off? I suppose that's funny to the public because I can't remember when I've been stumped by anyone... she stumps me all the time. A lot of people may assume people are afraid of me. The fact is that she's not, not only does she not have any reason to be, but the public will see during this, that indeed no one has reason to be afraid of me in any regard. I'm not aggressive, I'm emotionally intelligent, I'm gentle. Intellectually... they may try to ridicule me... but they are trying. No one succeeds. People see you as an eccentric. How much of that is really you? That's all me. I'd much rather drive a truck than a car. I'm a natural showman like that. I want to be entertaining. Acceptance is something I've always looked for... if I went to see a psychiatrist in America, they would say: 'This man is looking for acceptance.' I'm not ashamed of that because that's what I've equated it to be. I'm in the public eye. I'm always into having people lift an eyebrow and say that's different, or that's strange, or nice, or charming. Do you think you got out of boxing at the right time? Boxing doesn't affect a boxer's intelligence. It may affect their speech or their motorised speech patterns. A lot of fighters have the tendency to slur, but that has nothing to do with their intelligence. Do you think it affected you physically at all? I got out at the right time. I did my winning and I took my beatings. You have to take your beatings. You handed quite a few out as well. I handed out quite a few, yes. The reason I wasn't respected at the beginning was because I was handing them out. People need to see that you can actually take them, and take them like a man. When people see you can do that as well as win, then they see he's a proper champion. Why take on Benn again? I was asked to do a seven-day stunt on Gladiators in Rome. I thought I was going over there to read some poetry on the warrior and have a competition which would be a game... and to do that you only have to be 40 per cent cocked. And I've gone out there 40 per cent cocked, only to run into Nigel who was 100 per cent cocked. It was the most vicious, terrifying, undignified project I have ever been involved in. But then you go and taunt him... With hindsight I shouldn't have done that because it didn't help things. But then again I had to find a way to step up. He would have paid for the opportunity after I beat him in 1990.I was willing to give my life then, which is why I built up the respect I did. I wasn't prepared to do that for a game show, and he was. He actually says to himself: 'I can't lose to this man, I will not be able to live this down.' So he's gone into it foaming at the mouth and I've gone in there Mr Dandy, strutting and looking to recite some poetry. How much would you have to be offered to box him again? £20m but no one's going to offer me that kind of money. Perhaps Mr Abramovich over at Chelsea might stump up? No, trust me, he's not interested. It's not going to happen. They say there's a price for everything. I would say 'yes', but for a man like me, there's no casting couch. If someone said to me I'd pay you £100,000, £1million, £1billion for me and you to go behind closed doors, no cameras around, and for me to cup my hand underneath your bum [makes cupping gesture], just give it a nice little squeeze, I don't want the money. So I can't be bought for some things. As a former middleweight do you think that Roy Jones should get in with Lennox? He's good enough. Lennox asked me the other day what I thought of him fighting Jones, and I said: 'Make sure you come in light. Make sure you come in at the weight that you fought Tyson. Don't come in at eighteen stone four. You'll get boxed to pieces. What would you like your epitaph to be? You can't ask me that because I'm not going to die tomorrow. Your ultimate achievement then? Never stripping myself of my dignity. Never putting myself out there to be laughed at. I could say it's having 20 world championship wins, but you could have that and be haughty. It's all about ultimate dignity... I can think of some fighters who have many defences of the world championship but they aren't respected because they don't have a sense of dignity. You can take this wherever you want, tell whomever you want and it won't be contested: 'What care should I have of how well you do what you do. My concern is simply what you stand for. Are you a gentleman?'
[url]http://www.metro.co.uk/showbiz/interviews/819-steve-collins[/url] Steve Collins is the Irish former Middleweight and Super Middleweight champion of the world who never got the recognition he deserved, despite beating both Chris Eubank and Nigel Benn. He has a DVD, Steve Collins' Boxing's Hard Men, which is out now. How did you choose the boxers on the DVD? They're my own personal choice. I know I'll get a lot of people writing in saying: 'Why isn't this guy included?' But tough, it's Steve Collins's choice, not theirs. The main objective was to get as many fighters as possible on it. People have heard of Jack Dempsey, Rocky Graciano and Rocky Marciano but no one has seen them on TV - they fought before TV was that big. Are there any guys from the modern era? Sure. What we did was show enough footage of them all - all the greats, then I whittled them down to my Top Ten. There's stuff on Mike Tyson, Nigel Benn, Chris Eubank, Marvin Hagler, George Foreman - a whole spectrum. Who's the best of them all? Out of the Top Ten, the one thing that will not change is the No.1 - Rocky Marciano. He will always be No.1 - the hardest man ever to enter a boxing ring. Who missed out? Me. It's not my place to put myself in, though I know I was pretty hard. Are pre-fight press conferences just panto? With me, it was always real. I was always ready to kick off with the guy as soon as the fight was announced. It just happens to me. I never actually had a fight at one though, as security was briefed beforehand and could keep things in check. Why were you underrated? People did not know me. I was living and training in America and I was middleweight champion of the world before I came back to Ireland. I wasn't in the country for all the hype of that golden era of British middleweights such as Benn, Eubank and Michael Watson, so I was overlooked. The first fight I had with Eubank was the one that made people sit up and take notice. How did you switch on for a fight? I just allowed the atmosphere to get to me. I always felt I was part of the show. The crowd would always get me going. It just made me want to get in the ring and beat the guy up more than I had before. I love to fight... I just love to. And here I was, in public, getting paid to do just that. If I'd done the same out on the streets, I would have been arrested. Did you, Benn and Eubank get on with each other? Me and Nigel Benn did. Eubank and I never quite gelled. Eubank still says you were not fit enough to tie his laces? If he wants to fight me again, he can. I beat him twice. How many times does he have to take a beating from me to know who his true master is? What's the state of boxing in the country now? It's absolutely amazing. There are some people out there in amateur boxing who are amazing. The level is at an all-time high. It's rocking at the moment. We have some problems as we don't have enough professionals and they don't get the opportunity to fight each other. But that will change as the amateurs come through. Amir Khan is only the tip of the iceberg. Some people say boxing is a sign of a misspent youth. Your thoughts? They don't have a clue what they're talking about. How much would it take to get you back in the ring? It wouldn't need money. I made all that and I am OK. If I was to fight, it would have to be the desire and the right fight. Then we would have to see if they could afford to pay me. Why do boxers not know when to quit? There is no training for what happens after you quit. Being a boxer consumes your life 24-7. There is not much to do afterwards. You have nothing to keep you occupied. Soldiers come back from a war and they are de-programmed. A boxer quits and the lifestyle goes and there is nothing to prepare them for normality or to show them how to expend the energy. When you're in the pub, do you get people trying it on with you? No, but if they did, they could have some. I love it... absolutely love it. I'd have no qualms about showing them who's boss. This content is protected Who prefers who in the personality stakes out of these two, guys? If you asked the question 15 years ago, it would've been Collins all day..?
