Michael Watson’s reward for beating Nigel Benn was a fight with the WBA middleweight champion Mike McCallum. Hardly a reward, but, post-Marvin Hagler, McCallum was as good as it got in the middleweight division. The Jamaican, now in his mid-thirties, had been fighting at world title level for five years and had beaten high-calibre boxers like Don Curry, Milton McCrory and Herol Graham. He had earned a reputation for being a particularly dangerous body puncher but there was also evidence that he was on the slide. He had been ‘outspeeded’ by Sumbu Kalambay and many felt he had been lucky to get the decision against Graham. No one felt that Watson was in for an easy night, but he would probably start marginal favourite.
Watson was now the mandatory challenger for McCallum’s belt and promoters were invited to bid to stage the fight. Mickey Duff had put on McCallum’s fight with Graham and it seemed obvious that he would win the right to promote a bout between the champion and his man Watson. What upset the applecart was the emergence of another promoter who was keen to get a piece of the action. Relatively new to the sport, Barry Hearn had spread his wings from snooker, where he had enjoyed great success with the likes of Steve Davis, to boxing. Hearn, who began life as an accountant, had promoted Frank Bruno’s win over Joe Bugner at Tottenham’s White Hart Lane in 1987 and, by the end of the 1980s, he was becoming a serious player in the sport, even though he lacked a world champion. Hearn’s offer to stage the bout was more lucrative than Duff’s. In winning the purse bid, Hearn established himself as part of the Watson camp and also increased the divisions between the fighter and his current promoter.
Watson had been convinced that Duff didn’t believe in him, especially for the Benn fight. In his book Twenty & Out, Duff denies this and says he made money out of betting on his man to beat Benn. Whether he believed in Watson’s talent as much as the fighter himself is another matter. Duff came from a different time and his grounding in the sport came during the 1950s and 1960s, where fighters would often have forty or fifty bouts before their first world title challenge. As far as he was concerned, he couldn’t see the need to rush. Watson, who was only twenty-four and had time on his side. He also didn’t want him to fight McCallum. He could see the problems for Watson against such a cagey fighter, who knew as much about boxing as Watson and had been a practitioner for so much longer. Duff didn’t think Watson would lose, but he would have been happier pursuing other, safer options. For Watson, Duff losing the purse bids for the fight was to prove a liberating experience.
If there had been joy for Watson in beating Benn, it was tempered by what followed immediately in the aftermath of the fight. The day after the win, his post-fight victory press conference was interrupted by Benn, who offered genuine praise to his conqueror before reminding those present that he would be back. If that irked Watson, it was nothing compared to seeing the former champion on television later that day admitting he had underestimated the challenger, had spent too much time on his hair but was now going to America to transform himself into the genuine article. He even had the nerve to say that, when he returned to England with a world title, he’d happily have a rematch. Watson’s moment was gone – a winner he may have been in the ring, but the PR battle was a no-contest. The papers wrote as much about the loser as they did the victor. The softly spoken man from north London was seething. How could his career still look tame in comparison with that of the man he had so comprehensively dismantled?
Whether or not Hearn knew of Watson’s dissatisfaction, he spoke the language the champion wanted to hear. Hearn spoke of future fights, which would include maybe another battle against Benn and also a bout with one of his stable. He had recently taken on another British middleweight who had been based in America before returning for home comfort. His name was Chris Eubank. At the time, mention of his name had little effect on Watson, who was focused purely on the world title challenge against McCallum. What Watson did notice was the way Hearn went about his business; while Duff was keen for his fighters to learn the business and pay their dues, Hearn saw boxing as business, where fights were made if people wanted to see them. ‘It’s a horrible, dirty, money-grabbing business … the one factor that binds it all together is money,’ Hearn told me. ‘We have fighters now that, as much as we love them, I will put them in against the devil himself with a bazooka gun, if the money is right. And they know that. And it’s better to be honest with them. I’ll say to them “Why did you start fighting? Did you start fighting because you wanted a belt on your mantelpiece in your council house or did you start fighting because you wanted the house on the hill? You started fighting because you wanted to change your life.”’
As the eighties drew to a close, with another recession about to hit and the threat of the poll tax looming, money was an increasingly important factor for men in such uncertain pursuits such as professional boxing. The best way for Watson to make that money, to provide for his two daughters, was to win a world title. Watson would not be the first or last boxer to enter Hearn’s offices in Essex and seek better recompense for his labours. While so many people seemed to be struggling to find the money to pay bills, Hearn, who had made a fortune through snooker, had the cash and connections to lure boxers into his stable. The bout would be in November 1989 at Alexandra Palace. Meanwhile, in America, his old adversary Benn was busy.
Benn had gone to Miami, where he would be trained by Englishman Vic Andretti, a former British light welterweight champion. Jettisoned was Brian Lynch, his apparent failure to come up with an alternative game plan against Watson making him an appropriate and easy scapegoat. It wouldn’t be the last time that Benn changed trainers. For now, he was immersed in boxing history – the 5th Street Gym, where he trained, had seen many of the greats go through their paces, Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard to name but two. Those two may have been famous for their ability to dance in the ring, but Benn’s initiation was more brutal. Whatever the truth about his dislike of sparring, in Miami he sparred and took his lessons the hard way. The ‘crash-bang-wallop’ style was replaced by a more patient approach, with the jab becoming a new and permanent feature. Andretti preached calm and Benn listened. Defeat had left him embarrassed to walk around London, where he feared those on the street might have thrown a few choice words in his direction. In Florida, he was no one. His children and partner, Sharron, remained in England, the theory being that distractions were harder to find in Miami. It had often been said in boxing circles that Benn’s style was better suited to American audiences, where aggression was prized above defensive genius. If Benn was to achieve as much as possible with his natural talent, the States was a suitable forum on a number of levels. He wouldn’t be reminded of what happened to him in Finsbury Park. He’d learn about his chosen sport from more experienced men and he could also, in theory, escape some of the distractions that life in London offered. However, life in Miami wasn’t exactly a case of solitary confinement.
He had friends with him, like hellraiser pal Ray Sullivan, or ‘Rolex Ray’, as he became known, and Mendy was never far from the action. The manager divided his time between the two sides of the Atlantic, doing deals to keep Benn’s profile high. On one occasion he returned to the States after reading in one of the national newspapers about a night of passion involving Benn and a local woman. The newspaper had, in graphic and intimate detail, told of how Benn had eaten strawberries off her naked body. When confronted about it by Mendy, who was trying to placate his fighter’s partner, Benn not only admitted to the infidelity but also confirmed he had encouraged the girl to sell her story and make some money!
Benn’s extra-curricular activities might have hurt those back at home and been a hassle for those in charge of his career, but they never seemed to affect the fighter’s energy levels. He trained, as he had done in England, with a zeal and energy that bordered on the maniacal. Throughout his career, Benn would have disagreements with his trainers about the amount of sparring he’d need, but no cornerman ever had cause to reproach him for a lack of effort when preparing for a bout. In America, whether or not he’d been out the night before, Benn would always make his 6 a.m. run, which would range from six to twelve miles. In the 1990s, such burning of the candle at both ends wasn’t uncommon for top athletes – the Manchester United and England captain Bryan Robson was known as both a prodigious drinker and ferocious trainer. But Robson paid a price – he was injury-prone, failing to complete two World Cups while still in his prime. Benn would find years later that his hectic private life denied him a longer career.
Despite his first defeat, Benn wasn’t considered dead wood by some of the big players in American boxing. Bob Arum, whose organisation Top Rank had promoted several of Marvin Hagler’s bouts, liked the Englishman’s style and offered him a two-fight deal. ‘He was a charming guy,’ says Bruce Trampler, the firm’s matchmaker, who put Benn in with the tough Dominican Republic middleweight Jorge Amparo for the first of those bouts. The thirty-six-year-old didn’t punch hard enough to pose a threat, but he wasn’t the kind of opponent likely to fall after absorbing one punch. The fight, staged in Atlantic City, New Jersey, on 20 October, ended with Benn victorious after ten rounds. For the first time since he had turned professional, Benn had been forced to go the distance. While he proved that he possessed the stamina required and that maybe the exhaustion against Watson was an aberration, critics also wondered whether this proved Benn lacked the power at the highest level.
Five days later, his old amateur rival Rod Douglas had the biggest bout of his career. After thirteen consecutive victories, he was matched against Herol Graham, who went back to defending his British middleweight title after that loss to McCallum. Douglas was outclassed and then stopped after nine one-sided rounds. Shortly after the fight ended, Douglas suffered a blood clot and, although he would recover, the nature of his injuries meant he would never fight again. The doctor who cared for him was consultant neurologist Peter Hamlyn. It would not be the last time he’d treat a stricken boxer.
As Watson approached his first world title challenge, it seemed nothing could go wrong. He had not just reached the levels of fitness and conditioning which had proved Benn’s undoing, he had surpassed them. His chief sparring partner had been an old friend named Ray Webb, whose lanky frame made him ideal for the challenge posed by McCallum. Sparring is usually done until the week before the fight, in order to avoid injuries, but with eight days to go until the bout Watson sustained a broken nose, which forced an immediate cancellation. All the momentum that Watson had built after the Benn victory was lost. He had become, by virtue of that victory, the man to watch in the congested British middleweight scene. The setbacks he’d suffered before beating Benn had been put to one side and, with that, those feelings of envy and disillusionment also faded. But that training mishap made him question why things couldn’t always go his way. Watson knew that an extra five or six months to prepare for McCallum would be of little use. All the while, he’d know that the man he’d beaten so emphatically in his last fight had picked himself up and was causing a stir in America. This should be my time, thought Watson. But fate was conspiring against him.
Barry Hearn rescheduled the contest for April 1990. If Watson didn’t fight until then, he’d have spent nearly a year on the sidelines. Older fighters benefit from such a rest, their bodies needing time to heal, but Watson, who had had a relatively meagre twenty-three bouts in five years, needed the activity. He pleaded with both Hearn and Duff to get him a warm-up in the interim, but nothing could be arranged. This time, training was more of a slog, the sharpness that he had felt in 1989 replaced now by a feeling that he was treading water. To add further to his sense of disenchantment, Watson watched McCallum go twelve hard rounds with a young Irish fighter based in America called Steve Collins. That bout, which the champion won on points, took place two months before the rescheduled Watson fight. It was a double psychological blow for the Jamaican – it shook off the cobwebs and also sowed further seeds of doubt in the British boxer’s mind. ‘He should have had a couple of warm-ups,’ says Leonard Ballack, Watson’s longtime friend who could usually be seen at ringside.
Come 14 April at the Royal Albert Hall, Watson entered the ring not quite at the physical level he’d attained for much of the previous year. Even if the fight had taken place on the original date, he would have had his hands full against McCallum, but now, with a year of inactivity hampering his sharpness, it was a hard night for the challenger. Consistently beaten to the punch and outworked, Watson lost most of the first six to seven rounds. At that point, he put in one last effort, stepping in with harder punches. McCallum took them and marched on – in fifty-five fights, against some of the hardest punchers, ‘the Body Snatcher’ had never been knocked out – before reasserting his dominance, finally stopping an exhausted and discouraged Watson in the eleventh round. It was a beating that worried many who saw it – even Duff, who was being gently moved away from the apex of the Watson camp, implored his fighter to leave the middleweight division, so concerned was he at the scale of sacrifice being made. He’d watch Watson fail to draw a sweat after ten minutes of warming up before the bout and worried that his fluid intake after the weigh-in had been inexpert, leading to a dramatic loss of power and strength on the night. You can have all the perceived weapons you like in a boxing ring, but if the powder is damp before you’ve pulled the trigger it doesn’t matter what ammunition you’ve packed.
There was no disgrace in losing to McCallum, who would go down in history as one of the best of his era, but Watson was now back to where he had been before the Benn fight. To add further pressure, his relationships with key people, such as Zara, the mother of his two daughters, and Duff, were deteriorating. The scale of his defeat meant a return to domestic matters was the only way forward. Watson hadn’t done enough to deserve a rematch – McCallum had been tested more stringently by Collins. A victory for Watson would have been life-changing – a rematch with Benn would be worth at least three times as much with a world title at stake and there would surely have been more endorsements for becoming the country’s first middleweight world champion since Alan Minter in 1980. Watson dreamed of earning enough money to secure the future of his daughters and also the respect of the boxing world, and the journey to those goals was far from complete. As he convalesced, he knew, not for the first time in his career, that bigger challenges awaited.
In America, the Nigel Benn experiment was enjoying some success. Six weeks after going the distance with Amparo, ‘the Dark Destroyer’ – a nickname that was fully embraced in the States – stopped Puerto Rican Jose Quinones in one round in Las Vegas. The performance was a perfect combination of the old and new Benn. Hard punches, thrown correctly and sparingly, producing the knockout. Benn left the ring with reporters being told they’d just seen the ‘English Marvin Hagler’. In truth, the man Benn most aspired to be was Mike Tyson, at that time the undefeated and undisputed heavyweight champion of the world. The pair had met and Benn couldn’t help but admire Tyson. The money, the female attention and the power of his celebrity had an effect.
Back in England, the night before Benn beat Quinones, his former manager and promoter Frank Warren was shot in the chest, the target of an apparent assassination attempt by a masked man. Warren would make a full recovery and return to the sport he loved. Police charged Terry Marsh, a friend of Benn, and Warren’s first world champion, with the attempted murder, but the retired boxer would eventually be acquitted. During Warren’s absence from the business, promoters like Hearn flourished. Young, promising fighters saw that Hearn had money to spend and signed with him, knowing they could expect better exposure as well as remuneration. But of more importance to Benn was the absence from his camp of Marsh, who had become invaluable as a source of mirth and encouragement. Despite his love of nightlife, Benn was naturally more comfortable in the company of friends and family.
Eight days before his twenty-sixth birthday, Benn would go the distance again, this time against American journeyman Sanderline Williams, who was a late substitute for compatriot Michael Olajide. The purpose of a proposed fight with Olajide – once again in Las Vegas – was to put Benn in a position to fight the legendary Roberto Durán for the WBC middleweight title. Neither fight transpired and, although Benn failed to shine against Williams, a slippery boxer who’d fight half a dozen world champions and never be stopped, fate was on his side. Bob Arum’s Top Rank signed him to a new five-fight deal worth a basic £250,000 per bout and then positioned him to take on the WBO middleweight champion Doug DeWitt. The WBO were not recognised as an official sanctioning body in the United Kingdom and therefore the challenger was happy once again to fight in someone else’s backyard. DeWitt looked to be all wrong for Benn, who had earned a reputation for toughness dating back to his days as Marvin Hagler’s sparring partner. He’d mixed in good company for most of his career and had won the title the previous year against Robbie Sims, Hagler’s half-brother. His experience and the fact that he’d fought better opponents for the majority of his career made him a strong favourite when the pair met on 29 April. Colin Hart of the Sun, who had tipped against Benn for the Watson fight, predicted another loss for the Englishman. Even Jim Rosenthal, who presented the coverage for ITV from New Jersey, says ‘we all thought he’d get battered’.
Benn’s American foray had taken him away from the distractions Britain had to offer as well as some of the pressures. Back at home, the country expected a string of explosive knockouts, bodies on the floor, followed by the inevitable question: ‘who’s next?’ Such a strategy had led him to Watson and, after six rounds, he had been exposed as a bully, a fighter who knew only one way to win. While some had watched his bouts in America and wondered whether the old ‘Dark Destroyer’ had disappeared, the bigger picture was that Benn was evolving into a puncher who could also box. It might not have been enough to win a rematch with Watson, but it certainly gave him a better chance. Regardless of the fact that he had shown another dimension to his boxing ability, a win over DeWitt would be an upset.
Observers were reminded of the potential for the unexpected two months earlier when Mike Tyson surrendered his undefeated record and world heavyweight titles to fellow American James ‘Buster’ Douglas in Tokyo. You could have got odds of up to 40-1 on Douglas before the fight, so unremarkable had his career been up to that point. But he’d dared to dream the impossible. Now Benn was invited to do the same.
The setting was Atlantic City and it may well have produced the best performance of Benn’s career. DeWitt says now that he might have been on the slide but his retirement from the sport two years later was no doubt hastened by the chastening experience of that evening. After flooring Benn with a left hook in the second round, he barely won a portion of any round thereafter. In total, he was floored four times by ‘the Dark Destroyer’, absorbing virtually every one of the soon-to-be new champion’s power punches. In the end, the bout was mercifully called to a halt in the eighth, with DeWitt on the floor courtesy of a left hook and Benn also on the canvas, but this time crying tears of joy and pride. The late Emanuel Steward said that Benn that night would have beaten any middleweight that ever lived. ‘Beating Doug DeWitt showed he still had bottle for the game. That was a great performance,’ says Glyn Leach. It was also one beamed into households in both America and Great Britain, with ITV, which had shown all of Benn’s bouts in the States, providing delayed coverage of the victory. If anyone thought the honest graft that had led to Benn’s redemption would affect his approach to life, they were quickly dissuaded when the new champion flew home by Concorde.
Not everyone was bowled over by the performance. Michael Watson, still nursing his bruises from the defeat by McCallum, admits that watching Benn pick up a world title eleven months after their meeting left him feeling a little more pain. Even the knowledge that his beating had propelled Benn to the course of action which led to a world title was no consolation. How did this happen, Watson thought? He’d admired Benn’s courage in learning how to box and expected that a rematch, if there was going to be one, would be for the world title he expected to take from McCallum. Instead, as Benn hogged the headlines, Watson would once again have to go back to being the quiet man in the background. Watson’s anger didn’t extend to his rival so much as those around him, who he felt hadn’t done enough to make him headline news.
Speed was now becoming a major issue for Watson – there wasn’t enough of it in the progression of his career. Not enough big fights at the right time and too much time spent away from the ring, while others, like Benn, staked their claim, seizing the opportunity for fame and fortune. His humble, low-key approach to the sport meant that, for all the admiration he enjoyed from those in the sport, he remained low key. ‘Looking back at old tapes of me, even I’m surprised how quiet I was!’ says Watson now. That quietness extended to his relationship with manager and promoter Duff. Rather than question what he was being asked to do and the amount of money he was being paid per fight, Watson would leave Duff in his office and then walk away, seething but having avoided a confrontation. Duff had no reason to question his ability to create a world champion – he would finish his career having worked with twenty. Whether he believed Watson could have been number twenty-one is a matter of conjecture and a question that Duff is no longer able to answer. But what is undeniable is that he did not realise the extent of Watson’s unhappiness. As always seems to be the case in boxing, the catalyst for the break-up was money. Watson didn’t think he had earned enough for his fight with McCallum and decided to break free from his contract with Duff. Following advice from Ambrose Mendy and sports law specialist Henri Brandman, Watson took Duff to court, on the basis that he should not be allowed to act as both manager and promoter for the fighter, as he would essentially be negotiating with himself. Duff fought the action because he felt he deserved better from the contract he had with Watson, given the investment he had made in the fighter. Mr Justice Scott ruled in favour of Watson, exonerating Duff of any blame but deciding the existing contracts, issued by the British Boxing Board of Control, were not fair on the boxer as he had no bargaining power. A new clause would be inserted, allowing boxers to make deals; it would, in years to come, allow Joe Calzaghe to break free of Duff, before embarking on an amazing career of his own. The Welshman would retire undefeated, having beaten virtually every top super middleweight of his generation, including Americans Roy Jones Junior and Bernard Hopkins. All that had seemed a distant dream for Calzaghe, when he spent the early part of his career on the undercards of Duff promotions, despite having turned professional as a highly sought-after commodity, courtesy of a stellar amateur career.
Free now of obligations to Duff or any manager, Watson decided to retain his independence, essentially managing himself. He employed a man named Ross Hemsworth as his adviser but, in the main, he would seek and make his own deals. It was maybe the realisation that, after a career which had so far failed to achieve as much as it should have, now was the time for him to take charge of his own destiny, rather than blame others for failing to anticipate his desire to do things differently. He’d watched Benn rebound from a devastating defeat and within a year become even more successful. All the while, he’d see Mendy by his rival’s side, making boasts about the boxer’s progress and the future. Watson had not had a relationship like that with Duff. It might not have been an issue when he was winning, but it certainly was brought into focus after the McCallum loss. He was convinced he had more to offer to boxing than Benn, had proved it by beating him and yet, in his mind, because of the lacklustre way he was promoted and managed, had no tangible rewards. Watson ached for the glory and respect that comes from being a world champion. Financial reward would follow. Having lost at his first attempt to become a world champion, he decided the time was right for a change. He contacted Barry Hearn, who remains his friend to this day – ‘my main man,’ says Watson – and struck a deal to appear on a card in Birmingham in November, with his opponent Errol Christie, the former golden boy of British boxing. Christie had turned professional to extraordinary fanfare, because of an almost peerless amateur career. His signature had been coveted by all the top promoters in the country, none of them aware of his major failing – the ability to take a punch. He’d been a pro for seven years but had failed to win a major title. Nevertheless, a fight with Watson had value – did either fighter still have enough left to compete at the highest level? Watson needed an impressive victory to reignite his career and position him as one of the leading middleweights in the country.
Such had been the impact of Benn in his world title victory that his next fight would also be against a big name, in the form of New Yorker Iran ‘the Blade’ Barkley. Nicknames are sometimes totally inappropriate in boxing, but this wasn’t the case with Barkley. He was one of the genuinely hard men of the sport, having traded life on the streets as part of the ‘Black Spades’ gang in the South Bronx for a life in the ring, most famous for absorbing heavy punishment for two rounds from Thomas Hearns, before knocking out the famous Detroit star. His last two fights had been defeats, though, against another legend, Roberto Durán, and then fellow American Michael Nunn. It wasn’t that Barkley couldn’t see the signs of his fading from the scene, so much as he couldn’t see, period. A detached retina in one of his eyes was diagnosed after the Nunn bout, causing him to miss a year of action. When he began training, he was 60 lb heavier than he had been for his last fight. But Barkley was a name who could bring Hollywood stars like Ryan O’Neal and Tom Selleck to ringside, and that was always an attraction to promoters.
The marketing of Benn remained as important as what he was doing in the ring. Flyers, postcards and t-shirts adorned with his face and ring attire could be found on chairs at the smaller halls of Atlantic City, where Benn had many of his bouts. With Mike Tyson now humbled and the established pay-per-view stars such as Sugar Ray Leonard, Hearns and Durán now nearing the ends of their careers, there was a void that could be filled. Benn, with his aggressive style, was ideally suited to the American market, which had always frowned on the traditional, hands- and head-high approach of European boxers. He might not have been the biggest star in boxing, but there were more than a few people in America who would describe Benn as the sport’s most exciting fighter. With that opinion gaining credibility with every thrilling victory, Benn and Mendy knew that another stunning victory could open the doors to big paydays, against the likes of Leonard and Durán. What had started as a mission to get away from it all was snowballing into something much more tangible. As long as Benn wanted to stay in America.
Critics had laughed at Bob Arum when he called his newest recruit ‘the English Hagler’. After beating DeWitt, the sniggering stopped. If DeWitt had been a step up for Benn, then Barkley, albeit after a significant layoff, was a triple jump. The New Yorker had the power to end the Englishman’s American adventure. When faced with that kind of danger, Benn’s nerves would precipitate a fury that seemed almost out of body. On that night in Las Vegas on 18 August 1990, the champion all but ran from his corner when the first bell ran, his purpose as obvious to the man at the back of the arena as to anyone ringside – to throw an overhand right. If that was amazing, more shocking was Barkley’s inability to defend it. It seemed obvious that the left eye which had been injured had not fully healed. With less than thirty seconds gone, Barkley was on the canvas, having taken virtually every one of his opponent’s punches flush on the chin. While trying to regain his senses on the canvas, Barkley took more, this time illegal, punishment from Benn. Although Barkley would also fire back later in the round, his inability to block any punches meant it was always a case of when and not if he would lose. Benn would knock him down twice more in the last minute of the first round, enforcing the rule which terminates a fight if one boxer has been floored three times in a round. On all three occasions, Benn appeared either to aim or land a punch at the fallen Barkley, something which can lead to instant disqualification. Veteran referee Carlos Padilla, whose impressive CV ran to officiating ‘the Thrilla in Manila’, the third fight between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, warned the Englishman, but took no further action. A month later, when asked by The Ring magazine why he had hit his opponent when on the floor, Benn answered simply ‘Because he was trying to get up’.
Victory secured, Benn then took on the British Boxing Board of Control in a post-fight interview, which lasted longer than expected, because ITV, who had shown the fight live, hadn’t bargained on such a short bout. Annoyed at the BBBofC’s refusal to recognise the WBO as a sanctioning body for world title fights, Benn looked into the camera and ripped up his licence. Or so it seemed. The licence was in fact part of a box of cereal; on returning home to England he’d sit down with administrators at the BBBofC and present his licence as proof that the act of ripping up a fake had merely been a piece of theatre. All the while, Benn savoured the support of the many vociferous fans who’d crossed the Atlantic. English sport was very much on the up, after England had reached the semi-finals of the football World Cup in Italy, with Paul Gascoigne’s tears an indelible image of the year. Now Benn was redefining the stereotype of a British boxer – now he was the man to send to America to do a job, where so many had previously fallen, and hard.
There were two things he now had to confront: who he would fight next and his relationship with Ambrose Mendy. The pair had drifted apart during the period after the Watson defeat, with Benn in America, mostly on his own, while Mendy continued to scheme and sell in Britain. But, as with Watson, the issue that almost always alienates a boxer and his manager is money. Benn had been paid $400,000 for the Barkley win, not a small sum by any means, but after tax and other deductions, namely training costs, the eventual figure would be significantly less. If, as his promoter Bob Arum claimed, he was the most exciting fighter in the world, he wasn’t being paid like one. Later that year, the new world heavyweight champion James Douglas earned just under $25 million when he turned up 20 lb over his best fighting weight and lost his titles to Evander Holyfield. These were sums Benn could only dream of. On the flight back to London after the Barkley victory, he cornered an ITV executive and asked how much their contract had been worth to him and Mendy, who was asleep and unaware of the conversation. The executive told the champion that he’d have to ask Mendy for the full details, such was the confidential nature of the contract. A disgruntled Benn returned to his seat, in his mind the thoughts of why it was he who was doing all the ‘fighting and training’ but Mendy who had the big house and swimming pool continuing to manifest and increase. Mendy himself says that the relationship began to deteriorate because of his belief that the fighter was using recreational drugs.
They were still together when deciding what to do next. There were options in America, with fading legends Sugar Ray Leonard and Roberto Durán mentioned, along with a potential payday of $5 million. The American experiment had been a success: five fights and five wins in ten months against opposition that was generally of a better standard than he’d faced in England. He’d become a more rounded fighter, learning to be patient when the knockouts didn’t come. Such had been the directions in which his and Watson’s career had moved that very few were now calling for a rematch. Positioning himself as one of the sport’s most exciting performers, Benn had the world at his feet. However, not everyone was convinced he’d have lasted the distance in the States. Bruce Trampler, Bob Arum’s matchmaker, believes Benn would have been swallowed up by the demands of being a world champion in a foreign country. That assertion was based on Benn’s emotional make-up – he could be controlled, using his aggression in the right way, but, as he proved against Barkley, when he should have been disqualified, he could still go too far. Despite all his success, the bout against Barkley would be his last in America.
The glamour of the States could satisfy most, but the street animal inside Benn responded to a more primeval emotion – he was being called out by Chris Eubank. In Benn’s mind, Eubank didn’t belong in the same boxing universe as him, so there was no harm in paying a visit back to Britain to sort out a little domestic trouble against a fighter, who, while unbeaten, had not faced the calibre of opposition that he had. This was going to be easy.
Like Nigel Benn and Michael Watson, Christopher Livingstone Eubanks (he dropped the ‘s’ from his surname before he began boxing) was born in London. One of five children, with three older brothers and a sister, Eubank the younger came into the world on 8 August 1966, just days after the greatest moment in English sporting history, the winning of football’s World Cup. Although he was born in Dulwich, south London, Eubank would spend the first six years of his life in Jamaica with his maternal grandmother, as his mother and father remained in England saving to buy a house. On returning to the United Kingdom, Eubank would live in various parts of London and showed early signs of being a talented thief. He remembers being given a fearful slap for stealing crisps from a local newsagent while shopping with his mother. Very much a mummy’s boy, Eubank’s life would take a significant turn for the worse when that maternal influence was removed while he was still young, his mother moving to New York, apparently tired of his father’s constant womanising.
The immediate impact of that was Eubank being raised, during his formative years, by his father, a man he described as a ‘colourful character’. Despite repeated rebukes from his dad, Eubank was trouble. He was suspended eighteen times in one year at the Thomas Calton Secondary School in Peckham, south London, before being expelled. Reports differ as to why he was always in so much strife – he says that he would normally be drawn into fights with bullies but others suggest that he was also one to initiate brawls because he had developed a love of fighting, born out of having to defend himself at home against three older brothers. Needing to establish himself in the eyes of his siblings, the young Eubank now graduated from stealing sweets and crisps to designer clothes. He would be taken into care by the time he was thirteen, a journey that would take him to Wales and then back to London. The homes didn’t work – instead of learning how hard life could be, Eubank used the experience to eat well and chase the girls who were also in care.
After returning from care hardly at all changed, Eubank lived on the streets, having alienated his father. It was around this time that he began running with a gang that specialised in stealing expensive designer clothing, some of which he’d sell, some of which he’d keep and wear. His daily income, he remembers, was generally in excess of £100 a day, quite a lot of money for the early 1980s. He would eventually get caught attempting to steal six suits but then, having avoided a custodial sentence, Eubank, ever the opportunist, escaped to New York, with his mother wondering what she could do to tame this most unruly of children. The hope was that now, away from his street friends, the impressionable Eubank would find something to channel his energies into. No one could have guessed what that would be; this was a sixteen-year-old who had only so far indicated a fondness for a lifestyle that he had shown no inclination to work for.
Boxing was in the family. Peter Eubanks was a talented featherweight who would inflict the first defeat of Barry McGuigan’s career on the Irishman. Young brother Chris says his motivation to enter a gym was to get fit but, almost certainly, the chip on the shoulder that developed after frequently having to fight his corner as the youngest sibling added to Eubank needing to find a way to prove he was the equal of his brothers. Just being a boxer wasn’t enough – he had to be one who stood out. As he admits, he lacked the natural ability of a great fighter so therefore focused on becoming a showman.
He stood out in a New York gym because of his accent. By now, the voice that would become as well known as any other aspect of him had changed. Honed by hours of listening to the BBC’s World Service, he had manufactured an accent and delivery at odds with anything you’d hear in one of boxing’s toughest gyms. Such was the impression he left that British journalists who visit his part of New York are still asked to this day whether they know the man who strutted around their gym thirty years ago.
Dennis Cruz was a super featherweight boxer who would eventually retire after a thirty-one-fight career which saw him fight a handful of world-class opponents. Although a southpaw, it was his style that Eubank attempted to imitate. Cruz was a legend of that New York gym, even if his career became a case of what if. According to Eubank, Cruz had more poise than any fighter he had ever seen but lacked the discipline, something the British man learned from. All the while, Eubank was sparring hard in the gym – legend has it that quite a lot of the best fights in New York take place in those tear-ups when the cameras aren’t on and the only spectators are gym rats. Having taken blows from his big brothers all his life, Eubank’s innate toughness would earn him respect then, as it did throughout his career.
Even so, Eubank would be stopped by a body punch in his first amateur fight. After that, there would be twenty-five more unpaid contests, six of which he’d lose, the other eighteen victories, culminating in his winning the light middleweight Spanish Golden Gloves title. There is a glory associated with accomplishment in amateur boxing which can rarely be replaced – in general, the endeavours of those involved in amateur boxing are more honest and linked to a love of ‘the sweet science’. But in the 1980s it offered no financial reward. Having already established a taste for the finer things in life, Eubank knew a successful professional career was the only way forward. Atlantic City was the venue on 3 October 1985, not long after Eubank had turned nineteen. American Tim Brown was the opponent and Eubank would win a decision after four rounds. He was paid $350 for the fight against an opponent who would fight only one more time. There would be four more bouts in Atlantic City – Eubank would go the distance against all of them, with the best victory over Eric Holland, a stocky Washington middleweight who would lose thirty-three of his fifty-nine contests but always guaranteed the paying public they would see a decent fight. It was Holland’s debut and he was knocked down for the first and only time of his career.
Eubank already had his unique selling point – he’d jump from the ring apron over the ropes, something he’d do for all but his last fight. As Steve Farhood remembers, ‘Eubank had presence, even then.’ If that remained a constant throughout his career, so did something else. ‘He was occasionally in non-action fights,’ added Farhood, who commentated on some of those early fights, broadcast on SportsChannel America. Eubank’s style was primarily that of a counter puncher – he’d rarely make the first move in any contest, preferring instead to respond to what his opponent would do. During those early years in America, he’d work with a number of trainers, picking up knowledge from all of them. But his primary influence came from his interest in the martial arts. He’d watched and learned from tapes of the great martial artists the ability to keep his distance from an opponent and how to get out of trouble, something he’d need both in the ring and on the rough streets of New York, where he frequently found himself in life-threatening situations. It is a style that is impossible to copy – and not many have tried to. Some, like future featherweight world champion Prince Naseem Hamed, have tried to claim credit for influencing a man eight years his senior. In fact, television footage from one of Eubank’s later fights in London show a young Naseem, at ringside, watching in awe the man in the ring holding himself in a way which was like nothing ever seen in a British ring. Those early bouts in America and his initiation in the gyms, where sparring was tougher than one might find in Britain, did much to build the toughness in Eubank, just as it had done to Benn. Surprisingly, Watson, the one fighter of the three whose style most resembled an American boxer, never based himself in the States for any period of time.
The problem with Eubank’s particular style was that it had technical flaws. Despite his insistence that he trained as hard as anyone, Eubank was essentially stubborn and hard to change. A case in point is footage of him working out with former undisputed world heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis after both had retired. In the video, Lewis looks stunned at the way Eubank jabs, from distance and leaning in with his body. When Lewis points out that he can jab from closer in, Eubank tells him that he ‘can’t pivot’. Within seconds, Lewis teaches Eubank how to do just that. The advice, coming from someone who achieved more than any British heavyweight boxer, carries enough weight for Eubank to be persuaded to listen, even if he would never put it to use in the ring. But finding anyone he thought worthy of listening to and learning from during his career was close to impossible.
Eubank’s five fights in America had taken him over fifteen months. He’d been combining fighting with studying but also admitted to missing his London family, specifically his brothers. On returning to England, Eubank slipped into the old habits – the shoplifting returned. The knowledge that there was no way for him to escape his past unless he returned to boxing meant he based himself in Brighton, where brothers Simon and Peter trained. It was there that he developed a friendship with Ronnie Davies, a former Southern Area lightweight champion who had become a trainer. Such was Eubank’s self-belief that he saw Davies as the man to protect him from the nasty side of the boxing business rather than the person who could transform him from fringe contender to champion. What worked so well about the relationship was that Davies knew his man was so strong-minded that interfering was not part of his agenda. ‘When you’ve got someone with that talent, you’ve got to step back.’
Eubank would hook up with a local promoter called Keith Miles and convince him to pay him a weekly wage so that he could give up the two jobs he had on the side, working at a fast-food restaurant and a department store. As a newcomer to the British scene, Eubank was not in position to go to a promoter and earn a contract which paid him enough to concentrate purely on boxing. Like many aspiring pugilists, he had to take other employment to make ends meet.
After nearly a year out of the ring, he returned with a one-round knockout over Darren Parker in Copthorne in Sussex. The following month, he’d beat perennial loser Winston Burnett over six rounds in the same county. More notable was the presence in the crowd of Karron Stephen-Martin, the woman Eubank would fall in love with a few months later.
Eubank retained his unbeaten record over the course of the next twelve months, fighting frequently, most notably against former Benn foe Anthony Logan. While Benn had gone two life or death rounds with the Jamaican, Eubank, apart from a nervous moment in the opening stages, controlled the action and drew notable praise from boxing writers in England, who were starting to talk up the Brighton-based upstart. Eubank now had Benn on the brain. He understood the way self-promotion worked and calling Benn out was one way of getting people to notice him. At the time, Benn was the Commonwealth champion, awaiting a bout with Watson, and no one seriously believed Eubank was ready for such a fight or that he had the right connections for the bout to be made. What they and Eubank didn’t know was that the man who would soon become the most powerful player in the sport was on the prowl, looking for someone with the talent to spearhead his empire.
Barry Hearn, the qualified accountant, also had an eye for opportunity. In the 1970s, the east Londoner bought a snooker hall, just as the sport was starting to enjoy an unprecedented boom. Hearn began to manage players, most notably a painfully thin ginger-haired teenager, also from east London, called Steve Davis. It took Hearn five years to help Davis reach the summit of professional snooker, becoming world champion in 1981 for the first time. Davis would win another five. Plenty of other players followed into Hearn’s stable, impressed by how quickly Davis had become a celebrity. The likes of Ronnie O’Sullivan, Jimmy White and Dennis Taylor have all been managed by Hearn at one time or another.
Snooker wasn’t the limit of his ambitions: billing himself as a sports promoter, he’d also been involved in darts, football and boxing. His first foray was putting on Frank Bruno v Joe Bugner at White Hart Lane in 1987. That seized the attention of the establishment, but what was missing from his stable was a Davis, someone who you could gamble on, with the endgame being that person becoming world champion. Then he laid eyes on Eubank. Hearn was interested in the boxer, who was looking for representation.
‘I’d been watching him and saw his fight with Logan and was quite impressed. It was a tough fight to take. At the same time, I got a phone call from Len Ganley, the snooker referee, who told me there was a boxer who wanted to have a meeting with me,’ Hearn told me. ‘We arranged to meet at the Grosvenor House hotel in Sheffield during the world snooker championships. He swanned in, looking immaculate, as always. Beautiful tracksuit, swagger and his opening words to me were “Before we start, I have to tell you that I’m an athlete and I know my value”, so I thought, I like this. I’ve always liked characters in sport, I think they’re almost as important as ability, in terms of marketability. I was impressed with him and we did a deal.’ Eubank would be paid £1,200 a month for training expenses under the terms of the contract, which would only be renegotiated if he won a British, European or World title.
There are some relationships in boxing that just seem to work, even if the individuals involved seem slightly mismatched. Despite Muhammad Ali spending the vast majority of his career being represented by a radical black Muslim group, he retained a small white Italian American in the form of Angelo Dundee as his trainer, while Howard Bingham remains Ali’s personal photographer. Hearn’s East End patter seemed on the face of it to be diametrically opposed to the image of the Renaissance man cultivated by Eubank. But as brave as both might come across, either in the ring or in the negotiating room, both feared failure. Eubank had met most of the players in boxing by the time he sat down with Hearn. ‘He probably scared the likes of Maloney and Warren. They were pure boxing promoters, whereas I’ve always been a sports promoter. Boxing is a passion but I take a different view, in terms of my tolerance levels, which are a lot higher. I understand that geniuses are different people and we can’t expect them to be the same as us,’ says Hearn. Or, as one insider told me, Eubank was good for Hearn and Hearn was good for Eubank. Both saw the sport as a place where money could be made. Hearn’s involvement in snooker had shown him that for every player who won titles by being professional without being flash, like Steve Davis, for example, there was a need for the showman, like Jimmy White. In Eubank, Hearn thought he had another White, whose act was so unique it would draw in people who were perhaps ambivalent to the allure of the sport.
There would be disagreements between the pair as time passed but, mostly, they saw life in similar terms. One of the few during those early days was the terms of the contract. Eubank was after a retainer which would allow him to train without having to take a second job. He picked up £300 a week, which would help meet the cost of the child he and Karron would welcome into the world in September 1989 (Christopher Junior is now a ranked boxer), but there was another part of the contract with which Eubank wasn’t happy. Hearn insisted that the contract be voided if Eubank lost two fights. The boxer wanted that to be reduced to one, such was his belief that nothing could derail his career.
While Eubank would occasionally appear on ITV, the majority of his bouts were broadcast live on a fledgling satellite channel called Screensport, which showed boxing and golf. Hearn was happy to put most of his fights on that channel, even though he wasn’t earning huge sums of money from them. ‘Although I lost millions, and millions of pounds [in boxing], it set the business up,’ said Hearn. The immediate problem for Hearn was how to make that move from small shows to world title shows. During 1989 and then in 1990, there was little to suggest in the quality of opposition that Eubank faced that he was ready to fight someone of Benn’s calibre. Names like Hugo Corti, Frankie Moro and Jose Da Silva were unknown even to hardcore boxing fans, but at one of those bouts, against Kid Milo of the Midlands, Hearn brought along Trevor East, a producer and executive at ITV Sport. Hearn had given East the big sell about Eubank and, although there was not much in the way of action, East could see a personality, a presence, something a little different that could keep bums on seats when the TV came on.
Gym talk can fly around the world and can affect a boxer’s mindset – in 1989, even though Eubank was toiling at the intermediate level of the sport, he was telling everyone and anyone who would listen that he could beat Benn. By the time Benn had become world champion and Eubank was the holder of the spurious WBC International title, courtesy of his win over Corti, it was looking like a very outlandish claim. But it was having an effect. He’d told Boxing News in December 1988 that Benn was a ‘coward and a fraud’, words he would use to goad Benn for as long as it took to get him in the ring.
What helped him even more was the comment that has flown with Eubank everywhere he has gone. ‘Boxing is a mug’s game,’ he said in a magazine interview in 1990. Or that was how the quote was reported. In full, it read: ‘Boxing at a very low level/journeyman level is a mug’s game. Taking shots around the head for a pittance is without doubt a thankless task and a mug’s game.’ The majority in the sport heard or read the abbreviated version and took it as an insult. They had struggled to understand Eubank – ‘a boxer with an opinion,’ says Hearn – and this quote made up their minds for them. Here was a man biting the hand that fed him. He had also, in the minds of many, insulted the thousands of people who made their living from the sport, along with those who believed in boxing’s ability to turn young tearaways into men by installing a sense of discipline into their lives as well as teaching them how to act like men away from the gym. To this day, there are many who have still not forgiven Eubank for his comment. In the early 1990s, boxing in Britain wasn’t a sport you could casually be involved with. Generations of families were employed in the business, committed to the communities they worked in as much as they were to making a decent living from it. Only a select few made fortunes from it. They were the ones who felt hurt by Eubank’s comment, who could never forgive him for an apparent sound bite that belittled their endeavours. There were also boxers who had slugged away for years, taking and landing punches, accepting fights at a day’s notice and not getting paid what they hoped or expected, who could relate to Eubank.
What was immediately clear was that Eubank’s comment enhanced his reputation as a dilettante, someone so completely removed from the rest of the industry that he was now essential viewing. In the image-conscious twenty-first century, it is easy to believe that any self-respecting PR company would have apoplexy trying to limit the damage to their client’s reputation. Equally, many would have identified with Eubank’s position. How was it that so many boxers seemed to do all the work and yet ended up slurring their words and living off benefits, while their promoters sported none of those bruises and seemed to have endless amounts of cash? Eubank never spoke without thought, his utterances calculated to give the appearance of someone different from the crowd. He was convinced that people would pay to see him, whether because of his show or to see him lose. He’d preferred to be loved, but what he desired the most was respect.
On 25 April 1990, Eubank defended his WBC International middleweight title against Eduardo Contreras in Brighton in the kind of fight with which he would become synonymous – there was little in the way of action. It was on that evening that he first became acquainted with the ITV reporter Gary Newbon. The pair would develop a relationship which, over the years, would deliver televised exchanges more interesting than some of the fights under discussion. ‘You’ll never be world champion if you fight like that,’ Newbon told Eubank. ‘If that’s what your view is, you know nothing about boxing,’ the boxer replied. He had won a unanimous decision that convinced no one he could be a future world champion. The only people who still had belief were Eubank, and Hearn. That lack of credibility would suit the pair when it came to negotiating the big fight that they’d face at the end of the year – a challenge for the WBO middleweight title, now held by Nigel Benn. The returning hero might have been in America for most of the last eighteen months, but he knew all about Eubank and his mouth. Because the only fight Eubank wanted was Benn. Ever since he had beaten Logan, Eubank had been nagging away at Benn for a fight. Now that Benn had a world title, the goading became more intense. There were many things that set Eubank apart from other fighters and one of those was his certainty of who he could or could not beat. In 1989, he served as one of Herol Graham’s sparring partners as the Sheffield man prepared to fight Mike McCallum for the world middleweight title. Eubank contends that he spent a week chasing Graham round the ring, before finally landing a punch which floored ‘Bomber’. Graham says the first punch that Eubank threw put him on the canvas, after which the sparring sessions became so one-sided that Eubank left after a week, chastened by the knowledge that he had found someone more talented and complete than himself. ‘He was sick of me. We sparred for a week and at the weekend he went home. He needed a break because he couldn’t work me out. He didn’t know what I was doing or how I was doing it. He promised never ever to box me for a championship. And he was good to his word,’ says Graham.
Eubank did not feel that way about Benn; he’d seen vulnerability in ‘the Dark Destroyer’ from the moment he first met him. And with every Benn success, he had let it be known that he could beat him. He understood Benn’s psyche to the point that he knew a few choice words, be they in print or into a camera, would bring the world champion to the table.
September 1990, at a studio in London. Present are Nigel Benn, the WBO middleweight champion, Chris Eubank, challenger for Benn’s title on 18 November, Ambrose Mendy, Barry Hearn, Eubank’s promoter, and Nick Owen, presenter of ITV’s Midweek Sports Special.
A short video of both fighters ends with Eubank knocking out a Brazilian called Renaldo dos Santos and then speaking into the camera.
‘This is why I shall I take you on the night of 18 November. You are mine, you belong to me. I am the man,’ says Eubank.
Back in the studio.
Nick Owen: Nigel Benn, he’s talking to you.
Nigel Benn [dressed in a suit, shirt and tie]: Tell him to face me. The thing about him is, he’s all hype, he’s all hype. I can’t wait till 18 November and give him a good, good hiding. You know, he went out there and did a job on the guy. Who is he? Another Sanchez, Gomez, Lopez. Who is he … another road sweeper? Hey, I’ve done that before. Now I’m with the big boys. I’m there, I’m there already. He’s got to prove himself, not me.
Nick Owen: Will you prove yourself, Chris?
Chris Eubank [sitting to Benn’s right, in a check suit, shirt and tie]: On the particular night in question I will show I have what it takes. This man is nothing but err … he’s just, err, he’s the real hype. I came up the hard way.
Nigel Benn: I proved myself, boy.
Chris Eubank: You’ve had your time, let’s have some parliamentary procedure here, all right? [Benn sighs] I didn’t come up the easy way. I came up hard. I didn’t have Frank Warren, I didn’t have Ambrose Mendy. I came to Barry when I was fourteen and zero.
Nick Owen: What makes you think you can beat Nigel Benn?
Chris Eubank: Because he’s just a puncher. He’s only got a puncher’s chance. I’m a skillster, I’m a fighter, I can punch as hard as he can. I can box, I can slug. Everything is loaded in my favour for this fight, because in my opinion, although he’s a great puncher, he has nothing else apart from that.
Nick Owen: Do you agree with that, Ambrose Mendy?
[Benn mutters, but Mendy answers]
Ambrose Mendy [sitting at the end of the table, to Benn’s left]: Not at all. Nigel Benn came up the hard way. We’ll find out on the night who’s fooling who. In my opinion, Chris Eubank tries to talk as if he came out of some silver spoon society. He’s a kid off the street, same as us, and we’re going to find out on the night just who’s fooling who. In regards to Chris saying boxing is a mug’s game, we’ve got something to show you. It’s a piece of our own artwork. Perhaps you’d like to home in on that. [Mendy holds up a poster of a mug with Eubank’s face on it. In the studio, Eubank doesn’t turn to look at the poster] And I’ll say this, a Shakespearean quote for you, young man, to learn. ‘How much sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child.’ That’s from all the professional boxers in the country.
Nick Owen: Barry Hearn, why is this man the boxer they all love to hate?
Barry Hearn [sitting to Eubank’s right]: Well, I don’t think they do. I think that’s a reputation that’s been afforded to him by some of the Fleet Street journalists. It takes a bit of time to appreciate Chris Eubank. But having said, I’m not detracting from either fighter, but we have a situation where Nigel Benn fought Michael Watson and Nigel Benn was the unbeaten fighter going in. Chris Eubank now is the undefeated fighter, he’s there on merit. He is the man until he’s beaten. And, it’s going to be a very highly competitive fight between two great athletes. One other point I have to make is Ronaldo dos Santos is not a Gomez, Sanchez or Pedro or whatever. That man had never been knocked out before. In fact, in his professional career of some twenty fights, he’d never visited the canvas.
Nick Owen: Chris, how important is it to you to lay Nigel Benn out on the canvas?
Chris Eubank: That’s not important. I’ve just got to be the man. It doesn’t matter whether I knock him out or take him twelve rounds and give him a boxing lesson.
Nick Owen: But why is it so important to beat this particular man?
Chris Eubank: This is the business. This is the business. And I will do what is required on the night. Not only that, if he doesn’t extend me, which I’m sure he will, I shall not do anything more than I have to do.
Nick Owen: Why won’t you face him tonight?
Chris Eubank: I’ll face him in the ring.
Nigel Benn: Any time, any time.
Chris Eubank: You’re asking me questions and I’m being polite, I’m looking at your face and answering you. I have nothing to say to Nigel. I find the man intolerable, in fact he’s so wild. I have no time for such people, he has no class as far as I see it. About Nigel Benn, I will say this. He’s a powerful puncher, a very powerful puncher. Before this, I would like his autograph, because after I’ve finished with him, he won’t be anybody.
Nick Owen: Nigel Benn, will you be anybody after the fight?
Nigel Benn: Ah, yes. The thing about this is, I’ve seen both sides of the coin. Like I was saying before, after Watson kicked my butt, hey, I got up, brushed myself down, went and fought Quinones, Jorge Amparo, Doug DeWitt, Iran Barkley …
Nick Owen: It seems this one is working you up more than any other fight.
Nigel Benn: More than anyone else. I think the public is demanding this. I walk down the street and people say, ‘Hey, give this boy a hiding.’ I am determined to go out there, firing on all cylinders.
Nick Owen: Well, let’s make sure the fight takes place by signing the contract right now. I have to say there seems an element of genuine hate between the two men, Ambrose.
Ambrose Mendy: For sure.
Chris Eubank [Talking while signing the contract]: I don’t hate the man, I just want his WBO middleweight title. I pray that I have enough dignity not to hate the man. Hate doesn’t come into it for me. Hate destroys the game and makes it look brutal and that’s why a lot of people don’t take to it. I don’t hate the man, I want to take the man’s title. I intend to prove I am a better fighter than the man, which I am.
Nigel Benn: I personally do hate him. I personally do hate him.
Nick Owen: So is there any point in asking you two to shake hands?
Nigel Benn: No, no, no.
Nick Owen: Thanks for joining us tonight.
‘He insisted that he wanted to fight Eubank,’ says Ambrose Mendy about Nigel Benn. Barry Hearn knew there was no need for Benn to entertain Eubank, who did not have an especially high ranking with the WBO. At the time, the number one ranked contender for Benn was an American fighter called Gerald McClellan. In years to come, McClellan would become a household name on both sides of the Atlantic for tragic reasons, but for now he had neither the profile nor the connections to force a bout with Benn. There was no insistence from the governing body that the Englishman had to defend his title against the American. ‘They didn’t have to take the fight,’ says Hearn. What amazed him even more was that the contract that was signed that night on Midweek Sports Special contained no provisions for a rematch or any options that would keep Benn in the loop if he lost. ‘I was waiting for a phone call from a smart operator like Bob Arum for options, but it never came,’ added Hearn. ‘But Arum listened to Ambrose too much.’
That televised contract signing added more publicity to the fight. Nick Owen, who was the presenter for the segment that was pre-recorded, says that even though both boxers were cordial before the cameras were switched on, once they were sitting next to each other the atmosphere changed. ‘There was genuine menace in the air. I felt it, the cameramen felt it, so did the producers and the floor managers,’ says Owen, who, even as an experienced presenter, remembers sweating quite a lot as the hostility grew. ‘Eubank never looked at Nigel during the ten minutes – that arrogance wound Benn up even more.’ Benn agrees. ‘He didn’t look at me – as if I was beneath him. That just switched something on in me. I just wanted to jump on him and fight him right there and then! We both disliked each other with a passion.’
‘He just came from nowhere and all of a sudden he’s challenging me!’ says Benn. ‘I wasn’t thinking about him and then he’s shouting his mouth off. Maybe Barry Hearn had something to do with that. The next minute, I’m fighting a guy with a cane, who wears a monocle, driving a juggernaut! He was a dapper dresser, I’ll give him that. He’d wear a suit and it would fit him like a glove. But he [came across] as a man who felt like the Queen should live in Hove and he should be in Buckingham Palace. He didn’t like the way I conducted myself and I didn’t like the way he conducted himself. He called me a “ragamuffin” and looked down on me.’ Benn would also admit that it was one of the few times in his life that he fought someone he genuinely hated. With a passion.
A wound-up Benn was what Eubank wanted. He believed he could beat the champion, who was being encouraged by most of the general public to silence the challenger. There were other things that Eubank said about him that went beyond the normal pre-fight braggadocio. He labelled Benn a ‘fraud’ and accused him of not being genuine. Eubank didn’t know Benn well enough to elaborate on why he labelled him as such. It was all part of the hype, a game that, despite his protestations about the sport and the nasty side of it, which he abhorred, Eubank was happy to play. The majority of pre-fight insults are usually about the opposition’s ability; when the taunts become personal, bad things can happen. In 1971, Joe Frazier, the then world heavyweight champion, fought Muhammad Ali in what is generally considered the greatest fight in boxing history. The occasion would have been big enough, given that these were two unbeaten fighters and Ali was a former champion who lost his titles and his freedom because he had refused to enlist in the US Army, then engaged in the Vietnam War. Spice was added by Ali calling Frazier ‘an uncle Tom’. Frazier could put up with the references to his looks, which weren’t flattering, but being accused of betraying the black man was the ultimate insult.
Being called a fraud probably hurt Benn the most. To this day, he says of himself, ‘What you see is what you get’. What also agitated him was the knowledge that both came from similar backgrounds. Both had several dominating elder siblings and both were in trouble a great deal in their teens. In order to reform themselves, both needed to flee the nest – Benn to the army, Eubank to New York – and both those moves came about after a degree of parental intervention. While Benn mixed with the rich and famous once he was in the limelight, he never sought it. Eubank, though, quickly became the darling of the chat shows, guaranteeing engaging television through his controversial views and his unique delivery. Being in the spotlight was what he wanted, although it was an effort for him. More than one television presenter told me that, before interviews, Eubank would ask what a certain word meant before he used it. And more than one fighter confirmed that the accent was manufactured, that Eubank could, in private, speak with just a hint of West Indian patois. Those in boxing knew that and more than a few felt that Eubank was the real fraud. The resentment grew further at seeing him placed in a world title fight – he may have been unbeaten after twenty-four fights, but he was where he was because he could talk a good game. Eubank believed that he had got the better of Benn during that TV exchange and that it was the first step towards victory, but Benn genuinely did not see what Eubank had that could hurt him. That one-punch knockout of dos Santos was highlight reel stuff but the opposition was of the calibre of which Benn had been fighting two years before. You could make a case that Benn’s previous two victories had been against fighters tailored to his style, but there was nothing resembling the quality of those fighters on Eubank’s record. The promotion title for the fight may have been ‘Who’s Fooling Who?’ but the questions being asked were aimed almost entirely at Eubank. How would he cope the first time he was hit? Did he have the stamina to go twelve hard rounds? And was he the master boxer he professed to be? If his aim was to reduce Benn to the whirling, fevered slugger who punched himself out against Watson, it was surely a miscalculation. And there were concerns about Eubank’s own fitness. He spoke openly about his dedication to the trade he despised, but it was also common knowledge that he loathed roadwork, preferring hard sparring as a way to hone his body to the peak of fitness. The science of training a fighter may have changed, but the early morning runs remain an integral part of conditioning. By his own admission, Eubank felt he did not need a trainer, having learned all he wanted during those days in New York. So it was pointless on Ronnie Davies’s part to try to change too much – the old ‘pit bull’, as he was lovingly nicknamed by Reg Gutteridge, might make a suggestion or two, but mostly he was good company for Eubank.
The contracts for the fight specified that Eubank would be paid £100,000. Benn would receive four times as much. It was promoted by Hearn’s Matchroom company and he admits now that he didn’t make any money out of what was the first all-British world middleweight title fight. In 1981, he had staked a large amount of money on the development of Steve Davis and was rewarded when ‘the Nugget’ won the first of six world titles. By his calculation, he had also invested heavily in Eubank, to the tune of around a quarter of a million pounds. ‘A lot of money in comparison to what my business was worth,’ says Hearn. ‘We were losing a lot of money … the Benn fight was the gamble of all the investment we had in boxing. There does come a time when if you’re going to get your investment back or you’re going to justify further investment that you have to show what you’re got.’
What helped to convince Hearn to take the gamble was his view on what would happen when the two met. ‘Eubank fancied the fight, I fancied the fight. Styles have always made fights. I was convinced he was going to win. Ambrose was equally convinced that Nigel would win. But Eubank is one of the best counter punchers that’s ever lived and Nigel always came forward. He was made for Chris.’
The NEC Exhibition Centre in Birmingham, one of the favoured venues for boxing outside the capital, was chosen, with alternative locations in London unavailable. The arena was filled to its 12,000 capacity, something that some boxing purists struggled to understand or applaud. John Rodda wrote in the Guardian on the eve of the bout: ‘Although Benn’s World Boxing Organisation title is at stake, the WBO is not recognised by the British Boxing Board of Control and not regarded seriously by anyone other than fighters, managers, promoters and TV executives … The hyperbole has undoubtedly succeeded, for the arena, which has a 12,000 capacity, is almost sold out and ITV are paying to screen the fight live; a dozen countries are also taking the broadcast in some form or other. There can be no doubt that the protagonists and their agents have been highly successful in drawing attention to the event, but whether they can match expectations is doubtful.’
There was every chance that Eubank could find himself out of his depth and be overwhelmed in one round, just like Iran Barkley and others, given the dramatic rise in the quality of his opposition. But he didn’t lack belief in his ability – he had already shown that by telling Arum he had the talent to beat another world champion, Mike McCallum. Talent-wise, McCallum was a cut above Benn, but lacked that concussive power that can end a fight in a blink. Rodda, and others, felt that if the challenger could avoid those punches for the first half of the bout, victory could be his by points or a late stoppage. The problem for Eubank, one which surfaced throughout his career, was making the weight. Like Benn, he stood no taller than 5 foot 10 inches, but his frame was naturally wider. When not in training, his normal weight was about 13 stone and the fact that his roadwork consisted of jogging, not running, meant that he shed weight a lot more slowly than most boxers. But it would not be his weight that would play a pivotal role in this fight.
Back in the 1990s, fighters weighed in on the morning of the bout, as opposed to the day before, which is how things are done now, in order to let the fighters hydrate. On the morning of his fight with Eubank, Benn woke up at around 6.30 a.m. to find he was over 6 lb heavier than the middleweight limit. He’d been locked away in a hotel in Birmingham and to this day has no idea how he managed to put the weight on.
‘I was just eating fruit and watching On the Waterfront with Marlon Brando and when I got on the scales, I was twelve stone dead!’ he says now. Others have suggested to me that there may have been something else that distracted him from his training schedule. But it’s hard to believe that, given his honesty about everything he did during that period of his life, Benn would not be truthful about anything in his life during that time. The problem for Benn and his advisers, then, was how to take the weight off without anyone knowing.
‘Mendy had asked me if he could use a gym’ says Gary Newbon, the ITV reporter for the fight who was also commentating on a live football match for the network. The gym was called Stocks and was located near Aston University. Mendy didn’t tell Newbon what they needed the gym for and, with the reporter 100 miles away in Liverpool, the secret was safe. But there was a deadline for Benn to make the weight – he had until midday to shed over 6 lb or face the possibility of losing his title – in those days the belt was forfeited if the champion was unable to defend his title because of weight. So at Stocks he ran three furious miles on the treadmill, fully clothed, to lose two of the pounds, he shadow-boxed in a steam room, clothes still on, for forty-five minutes, to lose another two. By the time of the weigh-in, Benn was actually a quarter of a pound under the limit, but his team were concerned at how much work the champion had got through with less than ten hours to go till the fight. He was struggling to rehydrate and so began a concerted campaign to put the challenger off, using tactics that would be difficult to repeat in the modern era. Towels and ice were removed from Eubank’s dressing room – standard provisions for a trainer and cutman before a fight. Mendy also managed to get himself into the Eubank dressing room before the fight and act as an unofficial WBO representative, watching the wrapping of tape on the challenger’s hands and checking the height of the protectors worn under the boxer’s shorts. The Benn camp still had a stroke to pull before the two fighters came face to face in the ring.
On the undercard, new met old as Michael Watson took on Errol Christie in his first fight since losing to McCallum in April. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. Watson had expected to be the headline act by now, courtesy of that win at Finsbury Park, but in the eighteen months since, fate had contrived to put him back to where he had been before that victory. With his relationship with Mickey Duff coming to an end, Watson had sought assurances from other promoters. Barry Hearn outlined a strategy for him to fight for a world title; he visualised a victory for Eubank against Benn in the main event later that night with Watson becoming his main challenger the following year. That plan helped appease Watson who admitted that watching Benn rise from the ashes and reinvent himself had tested his faith. He knew that Benn had no need for a rematch with him and his resentment wasn’t with his fellow fighter but with the nature of the sport. That, despite all he’d done on the way up, he felt like he had to start all over again. One of boxing’s oldest and cruellest adages is that you’re only as good as your last fight. In Watson’s case, that meant he was a failed challenger who’d come up short at the highest level. Benn was, on current form, the most exciting fighter in Britain and Eubank the most enigmatic. Whether he liked it or not, Watson needed a new sales pitch, a chance to re-establish himself as the best of the bunch. That journey would start in Birmingham that night.
Watson was only two years younger than Christie but his mind and body were at least ten years younger. Christie had once been the golden boy of British boxing, but five knockout defeats had left his confidence all but shattered, while trying to meet the expectations he’d set himself during an outstanding amateur career had taken its toll. By now, Christie had gone from prospect to opponent, being used as a sparring partner by, among others, Eubank. He was floored within the first minute by Watson, before being stopped in the third round. Given that he hadn’t fought for over seven months, Watson looked very impressive. Job done, Watson took his place at ringside to watch the main event.
‘Who did you want to win?’ I asked him years later.
‘Is that a difficult question?’ he replied.
‘Benn?’
‘That’s right.’
Eubank’s preparation in his dressing room had been almost perfect. He had arrived at half six, surprisingly early for someone renowned for his tardiness. Promoters, trainers and reporters would get used to Eubank almost never being on time for any appointment for years to come. His routine involved massaging his feet and then insisting on trainer Ronnie Davies singing. After the referee came in to give him the fight rules – a legal obligation – Mendy would arrive to supervise the taping of the boxer’s hands. Eubank brushed Mendy off, telling him that he could appreciate what he was doing for Benn but that it would be to no avail.
As befits tradition, the challenger Eubank entered the arena first. It soon became apparent that the Benn camp had more up their sleeve. Since he had joined Hearn’s Matchroom stable, Eubank had entered arenas to the sound of Tina Turner’s ‘Simply the Best’ (an idea first suggested to him by Hearn’s wife). That night was no exception, but for the fact that when Eubank got to within fifty yards of the ring the music stopped. Hearn, suspecting this was no accident, rushed to the studio where the music was coming from. ‘I whacked someone upstairs – the only person who was calm was Eubank. I was foaming at the mouth!’ says Hearn. Though always denied by Mendy, it has been claimed that at his insistence, the sound operator had been told to play half of Eubank’s music before shredding the tape. Hearn was talked back into the ring by Eubank and the team headed for their date with destiny, the challenger still looking imperious. This was the moment he had waited for his whole adult life; rather than being daunted by it, he was soaking it up, putting himself in a position to seize the day. None of the stuff attempted by Mendy stopped Eubank, who was wearing a white poncho and matching shorts, from vaulting into the ring (more than one member of the press has told me that they secretly hoped he’d slip and fall on his behind) or stalking the canvas with his hands gloves by his side. What was also apparent was that, for all the talk about him a being divisive hate figure, Eubank wasn’t booed much on his way in and many even cheered when he jumped the rope.
Seconds after entering the ring, the sound of drums could be heard, followed by the sight of members of Benn’s former army regiment coming into view. Despite the energy he had expended earlier in the day, Benn jogged to the ring, clad in a black sequined jacket and shorts. Once in, he eyeballed Eubank, looking desperate to get as close to the challenger as possible. As if the hype for the bout hadn’t been rich enough, especially after the pair’s contract signing, Benn had stoked things up even further the day before the fight by announcing he’d retire if he lost. Conversely, Eubank had let it be known that he had bet £1,000 at 40-1 to knock Benn out in the first round. After the introductions, both men were invited to the centre of the ring to be given the fight instructions by American referee Richard Steele. Benn, snarling, moved forward, but was made to wait by Eubank, who, hands by his side, finally strutted to Steele’s right. When asked to touch gloves, Eubank left his right hand low, and it was smacked hard by the champion, whose facial expression had never softened.
As the timekeeper prepared to ring the first bell, Eubank once again reverted to pose – this time, both arms crossed, the right slightly above his waist. Again, Benn just glared. At ringside, a nervous Hearn turned to Benn’s promoter Bob Arum and told him, ‘You know you’re fucked, don’t you?’ Arum asked why. ‘Because you haven’t got any options,’ replied Hearn.
As convinced as he was that his man would win, so was Mendy. Something had to give.
‘Chris Eubank was the kind of man you’d want with you in the trenches, if things were going bad. Tough, tough man’
– former world super featherweight challenger Jim McDonnell
‘Let’s just say Nigel Benn enjoyed his job’
– TV presenter, commentator and interviewer Jim Rosenthal
Once the introductions were over, this was a fight that oozed tension. Noise from the crowd was occasional, and when it came, loud. But everyone there, and that includes fans, reporters, fighters and trainers, remembers it as a night full of tension. ‘Television neutered the event. It cut out the atmosphere which enveloped the ring,’ wrote Harry Mullan, editor of the trade paper Boxing News. The fans, the bulk of whom followed Benn, were nervous, as they always were before one of his bouts. ‘The Dark Destroyer’s’ vulnerability, exposed against Logan, Watson and, in his last fight, against Barkley, meant he always seemed a punch away from defeat. That small band of supporters chanting Eubank’s name had no real idea how good their man was – but they probably suspected that he had a chance. But Eubank hadn’t demonstrated in his previous fights that he had the ability or stamina to take a fight by the scruff of the neck and control the tempo. As he had been on the street, as a pickpocket, Eubank was an opportunist, seizing the moment and maximising it. That’s why his knockout of Renaldo dos Santos had become such a defining point of his career – winning in twenty seconds hadn’t been as impressive as the pose he gave to the camera in the corner, with the stricken fighter also in shot. ‘Most fighters are great actors, performers’ says Nick Owen. Few enjoyed the theatre as much as Eubank because his mind was set up to take advantage of any time the camera was pointed in his direction. That clarity of thought was a massive advantage in the ring as well.
Future Olympic 100 metres champion Linford Christie and Frank Bruno were just a couple of the 150 or so sporting celebrities in attendance. The televised contract signing between Benn and Eubank, and the subsequent replays of the snarling and goading between the pair, had piqued the interest of the general public. So many fights seemed to involve one boxer playing the role of the straight man and the other the instigator. Here, both men seemed to take turns in trying to unsettle the other. ‘We worked the crowd,’ Benn would say years later, but in 1990 there was no collusion in order to hype up the fight. Their mutual dislike and antipathy had transferred into true box-office theatre. Benn, so full of hate, was obviously irked by his opponent, whose cold but articulate demeanour was superficially the very opposite of his. They were both men of the street, but while Benn had taken to them to try to rid himself of an inner fury, Eubank’s personal circumstances had offered him very few options. At the time, little of this was common knowledge. What sold the fight was the placing of these two men against each other, the furious Benn, back from his American adventure to take care of some domestic trouble. But the trouble wasn’t in the form of the honest and dedicated professional Watson, or even the dancing Herol Graham, but in the strutting and pontificating Eubank, who you sensed wound Benn up before he’d even said a word. The weight of public opinion was behind Benn – people generally didn’t like Eubank and they wanted him silenced. They identified with Benn’s anger.
These were unsettled times for the country, with rising unemployment and inflation and Benn, his scowling and snarling, whether he knew it or even liked it, had come to represent the maligned and frustrated who wanted their boxing to be violent and quick. They couldn’t see past the fact that Benn actually had more in common with the Thatcher principle of ‘go get yours’. Here was a man from a modest background who had managed to turn his life around by finding a sport which catered to his ability and then rebounded from his first setback to become even more successful. Those same people probably couldn’t work out Eubank and the apparent hypocrisy of making a living out of something he so openly disdained. And yet there was another class of fan who enjoyed Eubank for what he offered – entertainment. He didn’t fight with the energy and electricity of Benn, but at least he had an act. He dared to be different and in every generation there is a percentage of people who can identify with that desire to stand out, to make their own way, while paying scant regard to authority. At the start of the nineties, with the country in recession, with the message being sent out that things weren’t necessarily going to get any better any time soon, Eubank offered a little escapism, some theatre that you didn’t expect to find in a boxing ring. Those fans began as a minority, not nearly as vocal as the followers of Benn, but just as loyal. And when Eubank told them he was the superior boxer, they believed him, turning what seemed like a mismatch into a contest you had to watch either in person or on TV. Around twelve million, nearly a fifth of the population, would turn on for the fight, believing something special would take place that evening. And they had to pick a side. Both boxers had such strong personalities that they urged you to choose one. There could be no middle ground.
The fight began, as expected, with Benn following the challenger around the ring, in a clockwise circle. That itself was a dangerous policy, with Eubank, in theory, travelling in the direction of Benn’s venomous right hand. But the challenger was not in survival mode – he might have been in retreat for most of the opening round, but it was his counter punches, mainly with his own right hand, that scored the points. On a couple of occasions, it seemed that he might have stunned Benn, but the round ended with the challenger establishing his jab and also demonstrating his power. Screensport commentator Dave Brenner accurately summarised the round: ‘Definitely the challenger’s.’
Brenner got to know Eubank as well as most during the beginning and interim period of his career: ‘He is a lovely guy, but could never be told.’ Indeed, after the round ended, Eubank, rather than return to his corner, strolled around the ring, gloves cupped at his waist. At the urging of cornerman Davies, he finally sat down, but the posing did him little good. He spent the majority of the second round swallowing leather, including a right hand which nearly lifted him off the ground. Although he stunned Benn at the end of the stanza with a left hook, the cleaner and harder punches had come from the champion. Eubank would later admit that he feared the pace of the first two rounds such that, for the first time in his career, he considered he might have to take a count. Even when he had Benn in trouble, Eubank didn’t really go in for the finish, wary that the champion had a reputation for exaggerating the danger he was in, before landing a potentially concussive blow.
The third round saw Benn concentrate his attack on Eubank’s mid-section. ‘I’m worried that Chris doesn’t take a great body punch,’ said TV analyst Barry McGuigan. In the majority of the exchanges, Benn’s power seemed superior – but it was also obvious that Eubank could take the punishment. Both men talked to each other throughout, but for much of this period the challenger’s words were more prolific than his punches. Even a late flurry, which included an uppercut that rocked Benn’s head back, wasn’t enough to swing the fight in Eubank’s favour. But he had done something which, intentionally or not, would later prove pivotal.
By the end of the third round, Benn’s left eye was swollen and seemed about to close. ‘He got me with a thumb – and that hurt! It was like someone had pricked me with a needle. It was sending pain to my brain … it was killing me, killing me,’ Benn told me. In the early twentieth century, an American middleweight called Harry Greb became as famous for his whirlwind punching style as he did for his ability to use the heel and lace on his gloves to wound his opponent. The tactic was so routinely employed in that era that Greb would partially lose the sight of both his eyes because of opponents out for some measure of revenge. The problem for Benn was that only partial vision in his left eye meant he could not see the Eubank right hand.
Benn could play the dirty tune as well – many of his body punches were only just about legal and some were clearly hurtling too closely to Eubank’s groin. But those punches weren’t the ones that caused Eubank the most distress in the fourth round. ‘We were in a clinch … and when you are in a clinch you actually put your head over your opponent’s shoulder. When you do that and drop your head, your jawbone automatically opens. And when your jawbone opens, your tongue slips between your teeth,’ Eubank remembers. At that stage, the challenger was weary, having absorbed numerous painful body punches. He was in the clinch, seeking rest. But Benn bobbed and rolled out of the clinch and landed a tremendous uppercut. ‘And there was a half-inch gash in my tongue,’ continues Eubank. It gave him a number of problems. The tongue was now a liability, causing him huge pain and also forcing him to swallow blood in steady amounts. He knew that if either his corner or the referee discovered his predicament, the fight would be stopped. It looked bad enough for him at the end of that fourth round, after absorbing nearly a dozen hooks to his abdomen which left him so disorientated that he nearly went to the wrong corner. It looked now, finally, as if one fighter had established dominance – but the champion’s left eye was now closed and he was, because of the ridiculous weight fiasco less than twelve hours earlier, operating on less than a full tank of gas. McGuigan, who is rarely wrong about much in boxing, would say at the start of the fifth, ‘This is all down to who is the fittest.’
Round five was the first that saw both men fight as if they had been in war – both were more circumspect and less willing to go to the trenches. This suited Eubank, whose superior boxing ability on the retreat meant he was able to hit and not get hit as Benn took a breather, his work rate conspicuously low. The eye looked worse and worse, so bad that today it could well have forced a stoppage. Benn’s corner, including Vic Andretti and veteran cutman Percy Armstrong, were unable to do anything to prevent the swelling increasing and the fight was turning slowly in Eubank’s favour.
It’s at such moments that boxers have to find something within that defines them, not just for one evening, but for the rest of their careers. Labelled a quitter when floored by a jab from Michael Watson, Benn now had the chance to erase all questions about his mentality. Boxing is a natural haven for bullies and his attitude before and during fights fitted the profile of one. As Eubank would say many years later, the force of Benn’s intimidation could beat 90 per cent of those who stepped into the ring with him. But now, nearly halfway through this contest, the scowl had been replaced by a squint. His face disfigured, could Benn find another way to victory?
In the other corner, Eubank himself was hardly fresh, but his countenance remained implacable. His gift for theatre was an advantage – he had absorbed numerous hard punches but had yet to give Benn an indication that one more punch was all that was required to finish matters. Benn thrived on fear and he had yet to find it in his opponent. Eubank’s strategy since the fight was signed was to show as little weakness as possible. He’d refused to make eye contact when they were in a studio together and even now, with blood pouring from his split tongue down his throat, he made every effort to remain, at least on the outside, stoical and unbowed.
Round six was another going Eubank’s way until Benn dug a body punch below the belt. Referee Steele gave the challenger a minute to catch his breath – and he would spend the remainder of the round being chased around the ring by an energised Benn, who, advised by Andretti, concentrated on the body attack. As the bell rang, it was still not obvious who held the destiny of victory or defeat in their fists. Benn’s face looked worse, but the body language from Eubank wasn’t great. He may have loathed the sport, but he knew the history of great champions digging deep, even in situations where they couldn’t win. Muhammad Ali going twelve hard rounds against Ken Norton, at least half of them with a broken jaw, knowing he’d lose the decision, or Sugar Ray Leonard, with one eye closed, stopping Thomas Hearns in the fourteenth round of a contest which had seen the latter dominate for large portions. Although never in their class, Eubank was, like Ali and Leonard, at times regarded as a maverick, someone who danced to his own tune, rather than the one played at every gym, arena or small hall. What critics of Ali and Leonard would always agree on was the toughness of both men and their willingness to take their bodies over the edge in search of victory. Neither ever sought a way out when things were too tough.
The seventh would be another test, for both men. The first minute showcased Benn’s murderous body attack. This wasn’t mindless aggression, but a strategy calculated to expose Eubank’s one real weakness. He could take punches to the head without too much inconvenience, but he’d attempt to evacuate the area when the blows connected further south. All the time, though, he was thinking about how to hit back. A right-left combination stunned Benn, who with eye closed, suddenly looked beaten. But the doubts about Benn’s courage, based entirely on his performance against Watson, had been erased. Maybe it had been too easy to admit defeat to Watson, a man Benn liked and respected. As each round passed against Eubank, with Benn’s face looking more and more contorted, you began to realise that quitting against this man was anathema to the champion. While Eubank needed the victory and title as a guarantee that his standard of living would improve, Benn saw victory here as proof of his reputation, most of which he had recovered after beating DeWitt and Barkley.
‘People have been asking questions of Benn’s chin but I think he’s answered a few of them tonight,’ said McDonnell in the commentary box at the end of the seventh, as replays showed just how hard he had been hit in the seventh by Eubank’s left-right combination. The next round would be Benn’s best – he boxed with Eubank, before chasing him round the ring and knocking him to the floor with an overhand right. The authenticity of the fall was instantly challenged by Eubank, who pleaded with referee Steele that he had slipped. That he was able to make such a coherent argument was proof that he probably had slipped. But the knockdown was also proof that, in choosing to train himself, his footwork had suffered and was naturally poor. When the punch hit the top of his head, his legs were as far apart as they could be without being in the splits position. Knockdowns are awarded when a punch’s impact sends a man to the floor, and this was just such an occasion. At the end of the round, Benn decided to imitate Eubank’s strut, which simply spurred the challenger on to do what only he could do. It drew a roar from the crowd, but others, around the world, were less impressed. ‘A lousy fight – two guys posing,’ were the words of American boxing magazine KO.
By the end of the eighth round, Benn led, by virtue of that knockdown, by a point on two of the judges’ scorecards and trailed by a point on the other. With a quarter of the fight left, the challenger needed to stop his opponent, or win at least three of the four remaining rounds.
‘This is the sort of fight that makes you an old man,’ said McGuigan midway through the ninth round. Defence, which had been, for the most part, neglected throughout, was now dismissed entirely. That suited Eubank, who was a step quicker than the champion, landing jabs at will. Benn’s eye was looking more vulnerable than ever and on more than one occasion the champion seemed uncertain of his balance, as if fatigue had finally set in. Eubank knew it – he set Benn up with a series of jabs, before landing a right hand that left the champion defenceless. On previous occasions, when Eubank had hurt Benn, he hadn’t followed up with relentless attacks. This time he did. There were less than thirty seconds remaining of the round and Benn didn’t even have the strength to hold Eubank in a clinch. With ten seconds to go, Eubank threw a straight right hand which not only hurt Benn, but also forced him into a neutral corner. With Steele looking on closely, Eubank threw a flurry of punches, which Benn absorbed, but for the first time that night didn’t retaliate. In truth, both men were at the point of exhaustion, but having taken Benn’s best and survived, and having had a plan to take the champion into the later rounds and then administer the final blows, Eubank was undeniably in control. What he needed now was for the referee to decide that Benn was no longer able to continue.
Richard Steele was regarded as the most high-profile and competent referee in the sport at the time, but his reputation had been called into question earlier that year when he refereed an amazing world junior welterweight unification title fight between Julio César Chávez and Meldrick Taylor. Taylor had dominated the feared Mexican and needed only to survive the last round to claim a points victory. With sixteen seconds remaining, Taylor was floored. Like Benn, Taylor’s face was a mess, even though he had had the better of much of the fight. After giving Taylor a mandatory eight count, Steele looked into the fighter’s eyes and decided, with just five seconds remaining on the clock, to stop the fight. In the opinion of most, Chávez would not have had time to get across the ring and land another punch but Steele defended himself by saying his job was only to safeguard a boxer’s future and enable him to fight another day. With Benn apparently defenceless against Eubank, Steele stopped this fight with just two seconds remaining of the ninth. Benn complained, but mostly out of despair. He knew his race was run that night.
Eubank turned away and sank to his knees, congratulated within seconds by Davies. In time, Eubank would say this was his greatest night as a professional fighter, but he had to pay a terrible price. His ribs were bruised, his left eye was also swollen. ‘Nigel smashed him around … Chris urinated blood for days afterwards,’ said Hearn. Even so, Eubank, as he had during the fight, still had his wits about him. He remembered he had promised himself that, having answered all the questions about his courage and fortitude, if he did win the title he would himself ask one question.
‘Karron, can we get married now?’ Eubank said into the camera as he was being interviewed by Gary Newbon. Hearn had encouraged the boxer to take the plunge. Eubank could not hear the word yes coming from his future wife, who wasn’t at ringside. The new champion was fulsome in his praise of Benn, saying he’d extended him in ways he didn’t think possible as well as lauding his ability to take a punch. Usually ebullient when faced with a Newbon interrogation, Eubank was short of words, admitting he was in too much pain. That would be softened by the knowledge that he had earned every penny of his £100,000 purse and could look forward to earning more.
‘The show made no money,’ said Hearn. ‘But we walked away with a clean title and that’s what the investment was all about. It was an amazing evening.’ Others who had seen more top-quality action than Hearn were even more effusive in their praise. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen two men with a more intense will to win. How much should you pay a man to bare his soul? Because that is what Benn and Eubank did, in the most thrilling contest I have ever watched in a British ring,’ said Harry Mullan.
More than twenty years on, there are still revisionist theories about the fight. On an edition of Sky Sports’ excellent Ringside programme, Eubank stated that he beat Benn that night because the loser came in angry. I prefer Benn’s rationale. ‘It was his night. He was the better man.’ Eubank had needed to be. As Hearn admits, it was the biggest and most important night for his boxing promotion. He had invested heavily in Eubank and, with no options for a rematch if his man lost, there was every chance that both of them would have been in the wilderness. In victory, Eubank claimed he had achieved ‘exoneration’. Maybe, but he also now had the freedom to call the shots, to dictate to those who he felt made the sport ‘a mug’s game’. Promoters may be the most consistently powerful force in the sport, but fighters, especially ones with as forceful and unique a personality as Eubank, could also hold sway. As champion, Eubank could decide who he would fight and when. And on his list of future opponents was Watson, whose victory over Christie had been destructive enough to make him a viable contender. If Eubank and Watson were on the up, then Benn had to climb the mountain again. Some doubted whether he could. ‘Today’s hero is tomorrow’s opponent,’ said Harry Mullan, insinuating that Benn’s world title aspirations were now at an end. Certainly, the task of rebuilding his reputation would be harder than it was after the loss to Watson. That defeat was put down to overconfidence; this latest defeat seemed to represent a truer reflection of Benn’s abilities, in that when the opponents didn’t go down after the first punch, he did not possess enough tools to find victory. Not yet, anyway.
Sifting through the millions of words said about the fight, most of them Eubank’s, it became apparent that the Brighton man lived the fight, then and now, as some kind of theatrical experiment, oblivious to the stakes involved, probably because he won. He had not spent the whole of the fight looking like the winner. A tongue nearly sliced in half, a face bruised and swollen, with pain etched on his features every time Benn dug a punch into his stomach: he looked like a winner when, after wincing, he carried on. That was something that most of Benn’s opponents did not do. A much more accurate reflection of Eubank’s state of mind and of the warrior within came when he spoke to Jonathan Rendall afterwards about the moment he had first laid eyes on Benn, when the pair locked eyes during referee Steele’s final instructions: ‘In the ring I looked at him and saw a relentless savage. But I also saw a man with a slight doubt in his mind. I saw that when he looked into my eyes he needed reassurance. I thought: “It’s too late for that, mate. You’re mine.”’
That’s how fighters operate. They look for weakness, perceived or not. They smell it and then try and seize it on the night. Eubank was on the point of exhaustion for most of the night but that sign of weakness at the start was what kept him going, what made the pain seem worth it. And the brutality of what he did had not escaped him: ‘In the ninth I hit him with a right hand to the side of the jaw and his legs went. He went back and I knew there was no power left. I measured him and whacked him. He came off the ropes but I’d broken his spirit. No more resilience left. Right hand, straight left, right uppercut, left hook … the referee steps in.’
It’s why Eubank is loved and loathed in equal measure. Because he thinks like a fighter. But he’d like you to believe that he doesn’t.
Chris Eubank had always wondered why there wasn’t a photograph of him on the walls of the Matchroom offices in Brentwood. He was told it was because he wasn’t a world champion. A few weeks after he beat Benn, Eubank walked back into that Essex office and found a suitable place to hang his picture.
Nigel Benn cried after he lost to Watson, but the defeat to Eubank evoked even more emotion. He immediately announced his retirement and apologised to his fans in the arena. The retirement wouldn’t last long, but, even now, the hurt remains. ‘He beat me fair and square,’ he told me. ‘But losing to someone like him was just awful … it was hard to swallow, to tell you the truth. Really, really hard.’
There was a moment while we talked about the fight when Benn misunderstood me. He felt that I insinuated he had been knocked down in the fight. (I didn’t think I had, but arguing my point didn’t seem wise.) ‘Did I get knocked down? Did I get knocked down? I’ve got to make sure you get that right, because I know I didn’t get knocked down! I remember that – I didn’t go down. Change that!’
Yes, of course the hate was real then. It’s real now. Benn would spend the next three years chasing a rematch that he felt would offer one more chance for redemption. He’d tell me that, years after they’d both retired, Eubank approached him about doing an exhibition, in order to make some easy money. ‘Chris, I can’t do exhibitions with you,’ he had replied.
Nigel Benn’s reign as world champion had lasted 203 days, but a much longer stay of office came to an end later that month when Margaret Thatcher resigned as prime minister after eleven years, the longest tenure of a British premier in the twentieth century. Both fighter and politician had reputations as bullies. And both, it seemed, were finally undone by words. While Eubank had prodded away at Benn with little digs about his manner and how he’d probably have been a bouncer with several illegitimate children but for boxing, so Margaret Thatcher was finally undermined by the words of one of her most loyal servants, Geoffrey Howe, who turned on her just days before her resignation. The argument between the pair had been about Europe and Britain’s involvement, or lack of it, in the setting up of a European Council. Thatcher preferred to have no part of the European currency but it was her lack of conciliation, the ‘my way or the highway’ attitude that characterised so much of her premiership, which finally undid her. Howe himself was resigning from Thatcher’s cabinet and closed his speech by asking others ‘to consider their own responses to the tragic conflict of loyalties with which I have myself wrestled for perhaps too long’.
Benn had a similar reputation – ‘the Dark Destroyer’ did not deal in shades of grey. Who knows if he could have beaten Eubank if he learned another way of fighting? He’d have to wait to find out. As the Conservative party moved to replace Thatcher with John Major, an altogether milder and more democratic figure, so boxing in Britain had a new star and perhaps a new direction. But like Major, whose first eighteen months in office would provide some of the most testing times for any prime minister, including sending troops to the Gulf War, so would Eubank find remaining at the head of his little kingdom more difficult than the ascent. There would be tragedy and self-doubt aplenty.