Never understood this Ray Close I thing. All Ray is doing is shouting and tapping the guard or v.marginally the target (not really scoring), Eubank's uppercut scores hard every time and cancels the 6-7 previous bits of fluff shots of Ray's that really didn't score.
Eubank was an excellent fighter prior to the Michael Watson fight, that took some of the spite out of his fight. The SNW division was new when he fought in it but in reality he would have been much better spending his career at MW, same as I would say about Nigel Benn
Nooo Eubank would've been much better spending his career at light-heavy. He killed himself to make 12stone (esp Schommer fight), actually nearly died before the first Watson fight at 160, according to some close to him.
Benn was never a natural super-middle and was bodybuilding with Tucker and Leach trying to grow into the weight. He went there to chase Eubank. He could still make 11st6lb comfortably, Nige.
Eubank did virtually nothing in the first 9 rounds of Close I. He finished strong but that doesn't win you a fight for doing nothing the first three quarters
Eubank had some very good (and a couple of epic) career moments but for the most part his WBO title reign was a dreadful series of dull encounters with undeserving challengers who no one in boxing had heard of. Some of those fights it's disputable whether he even deserved the "W". In his own mind he's a legend like Sugar Ray Robinson or Muhammad Ali, and he rarely ever ventures out into reality, so I guess that's that. Not sure why people on TV continue to indulge his silly act though.
Eubank was an enigma ....mostly absolute shyte ,fighting bums .mixed with some very good/lucky performances ...Balls of steel ,Granite chin and huge will to win....Basically the blueprint for Froch I think Froch v Eubank would have been a good tear up
