Eubanks three fights before Jarvis were Watson twice and Malinga Slightly higher quality opponents than Evensen, Laryea and Cook. I agree with what you're saying but the reason Eubank fought some bums is because he was so active. When someone is fighting every 2 months they can be forgiven a few gimmes, especially as during a spell of a little over 3 years he fought Benn twice, Watson twice, Rocchigiani and Malinga. That in itself is a better level of opponent than many current fighters face in their whole career
Benn x 2, Watson x 2, Rocchigiani, Holmes, Malinga, Thornton, Collins x 2. That's 10 fights in five years against current, former or future world champions or fighters only losing to the best lb4lb trying. Of course there was another 12-15 thrown in in between them, too. Nobody can boast anything like that.
Lets be honest though, at the point in their careers they fought Eubank, Malinga, Thorton and Holmes were considered safe enough fights. The fact a fighter is a future world champ usually carries weight, like Malinga but the fact they are former ones can mean next to nothing sometimes. Then theres Jarvis, Costa, Ferreya(sp??) Story, Sherry, etc etc who would all get Eubank grief on here if he was fighting today. Sorry if that sounds like a post slagging Eubank, its not meant to be. Just pointing out these older guys get a lot more slack than the boxers these days sometimes.
Eubank got plenty of grief from BN back in the day, more than any other fighter EVER, in that trade paper (the oldest ever)...
In fact, BN had Eubank losing by a lot of rounds against Thornton, Close (first one), Rocchigiani and Amaral, which was completely laughable and totally lost that paper all credibility. Just absurd.
And rightly so but thats by the by. I'm saying the more recent fighters like Calzaghe, Hatton etc. and their opponents get held to a different yardstick than the likes of Benn and esp. Eubank on here by a lot of people.
Giminez, Amaral, Storey and Schommer were terrible title challengers, but that's only four out of 20 and three of those four came in three months (his first three fights on SKY). The big knock against Lindell Holmes was his age, but if 35 was considered way over the hill then and digging-out-from-the-graveyard-level, look at Froch at 35 now and Calzaghe at 35 recently.
Stopped him on a body shot, though it was more exhaustion. Holmes was winning at that point, but didn't look fit that night.