Chris Eubank Jr. tackles blue-collar veteran Liam Smith

Article first appeared at Bookmakers.com

Most of Chris Eubank Jr.’s career has been spent in a quest for authenticity. To prove himself worthy of the name he inherits from a legendary father and to garner respect as a serious contender in the Middleweight division. There have been high points where he has legitimised the hyperbole projected before him, and there have been fallow periods in which his career has stagnated and the whisper of cynicism that haunts those with illustrious predecessors has grown ever louder.

On Saturday night at the Manchester Arena, he faces Liam Smith, a decorated member of the famous Smith boxing family and, superficially at least, the antithesis of everything that Chris Eubank Jr. represents. This contrast isn’t a new narrative. Eubank is always boxing someone hoping to knock him off the pedestal he adopts, and the one he is presumed to sit upon. Boxing thrives on these types of storylines and makes wagering on them at betting sites all the more popular.

It is the white and black Stetsons of the great Western films and helps build rivalries and ticket sales. Of course, the nature of humans, and of fighters, is never so binary. Nuance exists in both Eubank and Smith. But nuance doesn’t sell. Good guys and bad guys do.

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January 18, 2023 0

Nostalgia for sale. Benn and Eubank Preview

_{Article first published at Bookmakers.com}

There will be a different type of atmosphere in the O2 Arena, London, this weekend when the British pairing of Chris Eubank Jr. and Conor Benn march toward the lights. Memories will be stirred. Emotions and glasses will be charged.

Fans of their fathers, Chris Sr. and Nigel, two warriors of the 1980s and ‘90s, will recall the febrile nature of their great rivalry and those who watched as children, or were not yet born, and suckled on tall tales of Eubank and Benn fights, will grasp tightly the chance to experience those golden days via the proxy of their fighting sons. Those feelings, of a deeply rooted affinity to a fighter, are harder to muster among the inactivity and sprawling labyrinthian reality of boxing in the 21st century.

Rivals all too rarely fight.

Saturday’s headline contest boasts this once common intensity, inherited though it may be, and is a refreshing fixture even as a catchweight contest.

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October 7, 2022 0

Boxing isn’t to blame for cheating. Cheats are to blame for cheating.

Peace: A period of cheating between two periods of fighting.
Ambrose Bierce, American Essayist, (1842-1914)

Boxing isn’t an entity. It isn’t sentient. It isn’t a building, a person or a particular group of people. Nor is it an organisation or corporation. It isn’t owned. It isn’t a charity. It isn’t a sanctioning body, or a certain array of promoters. It isn’t one thing, or a sum of many. It isn’t a game. It isn’t a business. It doesn’t think. It doesn’t care. It doesn’t have a conscience.

It isn’t even an it.

On days like today, when the shit hits the fan and someone has been caught with their hand in the till, or cheating to get ahead, the orgy of activity that occurs beneath the word boxing is often referred to in this way. As a thing. A conscious, aware, tangible, living, breathing thing. Boxing is not any of those ‘things’. And as such, the idea ‘boxing is hurting itself’ or, more dramatically, ‘shooting itself in the foot’, is a phrasing which hinders progress and the serious discussion required to find solutions to the problems all too frequently perpetrated in the name of the sport.

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October 5, 2022 0

Rampant Benn wrecks Vargas in 90 seconds.

The acceleration in Conor Benn’s progress as a fighter is, frankly, astonishing. Samuel Vargas is not Carmen Basilio, but he’s rugged, durable and still held aspiration. He was obliterated in 90 seconds by a 24-year old with the patter of a superstar and a magnetic persona to match.

Vargas protested the stoppage, Colombian’s from the North American circuit expect to box on unless they’re laid out flat, but a degree of compassion will serve him well in the long run. There was the sense Vargas let the enemy in through the front door and Benn ran rampantly through the opening. Right hands, uppercuts and left hooks. Vargas’ eyes looked to the lights, the end would have followed had Michael Alexander not intervened.

For Benn, as with all prospects, contenders, matchmaking is key. If left to the protagonist, it will be ambitious.

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April 10, 2021 0

Conor Benn, the gatekeeper and the history at his shoulder

On Saturday night a British Welterweight, Conor Benn, will face a Colombian out of Canada called Samuel Vargas. Sufficiently endowed with a past, a sliver of remaining future to sustain belief in his motivations and the keys to the top 20 in the division, Vargas is the perennial nearly man and now 31-years-old. He retains respect for the toughness he’s demonstrated in a 10-year career and for being competitive with those Benn aspires to meet. In this weekend’s contest he will be playing the part of the gatekeeper.

For fans of a certain age Conor Benn continues to be a touch stone for memories of a youth long since passed. His swagger, his instinctive, spiky words transport many viewers back to the halcyon days of the early 1990s. Specifically, the time of Conor’s father, Nigel, and his nemesis Chris Eubank, their mutual rival Michael Watson and the five battles they shared between 1989 and 1993. All of which are seared into the consciousness of those of us who witnessed them.

This is the legacy Conor Benn carries. It opens doors but it cannot sustain him. Against Vargas, Benn will continue his quest to establish a place of his own in the Welterweight landscape. One rich in opportunity and decorated by some of the sport’s most gifted fighters.

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April 9, 2021 0

In the name of the father. Cosme Rivera Jnr. steps up this weekend

As I trawl through the upcoming fight schedule, as has been my habit this past twenty years, looking for an angle, a name, a story, I realised I have borne witness to the arc of a thousand careers. Watched young, fresh-faced fighters climb from the foot of the bill, to their personal mountain top, however modest it may prove, and then succumb to the inevitable descent. Back to the darkness and all too frequent anonymity that waits beyond the glare of the lights. Old, tired and damaged.

On one low-key card in Mexico on Friday night (12th March), I was intrigued to note the name of Cosme Rivera. A 19-year-old professional with an embryonic 3-0 record it turns out. The name doesn’t hold the same resonance as Benn or Hatton or Tsyzu, all of whom have sons who now punch for pay, but for this writer, it brought back to mind a rugged and capable Welterweight of the same name who once came to England to box James Hare.

Cosme Senior.

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March 11, 2021 0

Conor Benn, remember HIS name

The shadows, some hide others reveal
Antonio Porchia, 1885-1968

Conor Benn is an excellent Welterweight. Furthermore, he is a television friendly fighter in a talent rich division. On Saturday night he distinguished himself. Distinguished himself by both of those measures but also as an entirely different prospect to the man-child who flailed and windmilled through an early career beneath a spotlight his surname, rather than the merit of his ability, had provided.

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