howard eastman still boxing away

That's right Moogster, but to be fair to Eastman he should have won the title that night against Joppy. I mean Eastman played with Joppy that night and put him over late in the last round for good measure which should have sealed the fight, but at the same time he left it too late and in the hand of the American judges who robbed him.

 

Agree Ryan. I was just trying to get across what I think, and its what you seem to think Howard Eastman was an excellent fighter, in my opinion better than 50% of British fighters who have won a world title in last 20 years. Its one of them to the casual boxing fan they wont realise how good he was because he never held a world title, but to us the real boxing fans we know he was still world class. I like Eddie Hearn, if Eastman had a promoter like him he would have won a world title and wouldn't have had so many hard fights without being paid enough.

 

:good Eastman was avoided early on in his career because he had a reputation of bashing up heavyweights and holding his own with Chris Eubank in the gym and nobody wanted anything to do with him. He signed with Don King to get a World title shot, but it was a bad deal because I remember him taking a long time out after the Joppy fight for his contract to expire with King. To be fair to Mick Hennessey he navigated him into mandatory for Hopkins and got him a shot at Abraham, but it took a while and his best days were maybe behind him at that time, so I see your point Moog.
If Eastman was around today he would be a World champion and he would have beaten Barker, Macklin and Murray comfortably IMO.

 

Yeah I think he would have, in saying that no one ever seen the best of Barker because of injuries throughout his career. Always felt at the start of his career he would be a long lasting world champion, but even when he won it, he was properly 20% not as good as he would have without injuries. If it wasn't for injuries barker/Eastman would have been a real world class 50/50

 

It was a sad day when he lost to Wayne El****.
I like Eastman alot.

 

True Barker had his injuries, but he did well to win a world title and he performed well in the Maravilla fight and looked good in the Dominico Spada fight two totally different fights where he probably was somewhere near his best IMO. Eastman came from a tougher school though and he fought better fighters than Barker did and if they fought Eastman's physicality would have been too much for him his relentless pressure, body shots and uppercuts would have broke Barker down IMO.