No Middle Ground Page 10

  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.

  Scene III

  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.

  Scene IV

  ‘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 exper
ienced 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, fight
ers 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.