02.11.07 – By Chris Eubank: It has been brought to my attention that there are articles on boxing websites containing quotes that, quite simply, haven’t come from my mouth or mind. This mouth of Christopher Livingstone Eubank, the former World Super Middleweight Boxing Champion.
I can’t say I’m 100% sure that a number of quotes on a number of internet boxing articles haven’t come from the mouth of mine but, put it this way, I would have been intoxicated if they had.
It seems to me that people, or somebody (perhaps a creative madman of some sort), has managed to put together various quotes I’ve made along with fabricated quotes and created articles for boxing websites!
I simply don’t remember saying a lot of the things I’m being shown.
My life is too busy to consider libel cases or catch the culprit(s). I am a patron for a number of charities and a number of amateur boxing clubs (including Cambridge University), ranging from England to South Africa to Dubai.
I also help train white-collar boxers in these regions through honing their mental toughness and raise money from boxing events to assist certain charities.
(It takes many years to learn how to punch with devastating consequences so the risks here are basically nil.)
I also work with youngsters in deprived areas of Nigeria and regularly visit family and friends in Las Vegas, New York, Jamaica and Portugal. I’m a busy cookie, so to speak.
In regards to the boxing aficionado, I don’t have time to follow the business anymore. But I’m interested in the career of Amir Khan, my favourite fighter in the last few years.
If you, the boxing aficionado, are interested in my views on fantasy matches, best of the best, all time and so forth, I shall be forward in stating this: you can’t blend the era’s.
If their hands move with more or less the same poetry as Sugar Ray Robinson or Sugar Ray Leonard you still can’t mix the one from, say, 2000 onwards (or the one from 1990 to 1995, or the one from 1995 to 2000, etc) with them.
In heavyweight title fights in recent times, the hands of Lennox Lewis and Roy Jones moved with more or less the same poetry as Ali’s, for example.
If you want my opinion on what makes one a success in the business, I will state this: you must to be able to strut or dance or pose or charm to sell copy.
I did all four and it infuriated, but it brought me fans. Fans in the negative, yes, but still fans! What copy does is help bring your ability and talent to the forefront.
If you only have good ability and no copy, it’s not good enough. Colin McMillan, for example, was more graceful than Naseem Hamed.
In regards to my boxing achievements, it works like this:-
My first accolade was winning the Spanish Golden Gloves tournament which, in my opinion, was arguably one of the most prestigious amateur titles on the basis that you could combine all the other US cities together along with London and you still wouldn’t have what was the depth of boxers in New York City.
This was 1984. I began boxing in 1983. Where I fell short in experience and development, I had to rely on heart, constitution, and grit – the essentional qualities that make a great fighter – to get my hands on the trophy.
I won the (world) championship against the hardest pound-for-pound puncher of the 1980s and did it in half-guard, not full-guard. I was not supposed to succeed.
By then I had perfected the entire package, for example every miniscure detail of foot movement was purposeful despite him trying to blow me out of the ring as fast as possible.
It wasn’t resolve. The convinction I showed against Nigel Benn was total and absolute. For years on end, I made history because I was unrelenting.
The only reason I might have ever said I detested boxing is because I was doing too much of it – 21 world title fights in under five years.
It becomes pretty intense when you’re succeeding in the toughest game on the planet while getting no credit for it.
To be considered a boxer is an honour, because only nurses and firemen are more noble. I didn’t want to hurt anyone, I just wanted to play some chess and make some money.
If there’s anything else you may want to know, you’ll struggle to catch me. But one way that one gets somewhere in life is in not believing everything they read.
One quote attributed to me in the past was that the four best things in life are: ‘sex, champaigne, chocolate and cocaine’. That I would even consider that last vice is absolute nonsense.
On an aside, the so-called Celtic Warrior turned me over in my 44th fight and I hope the so-called Viking Warrior doesn’t turn Joe Calzaghe over in his.
It has been brought to my attention that Calzaghe fights on Saturday and I hope he does a job on the other guy so it looks better on me!
Regards,
Chris Eubank