Combining the style of a 19th century dandy and pride associated with a Roman gladiator, Eubank exists on a different plane than anyone else in boxing. He attracts ridicule for daring to try and elevate in word and deed the sport to its rightful place as one in which timeless virtues of courage, skill, honour, and resilience are reaffirmed. In this respect, he understands that when two highly trained and developed fighters meet in the centre of the ring, it is not only a battle of fists and wills that ensues but also a merging of the human spirit. In the process they transform one another and themselves, undergoing the kind of spiritual cleansing that can only come with pushing one another to the very limits of human endurance and pain. It is why when the Irish rebel Terence MacSwinney opined that it is not those who can inflict the most, but those that can suffer the most who will conquer, he could have been describing a sport that is as old as humanity itself.
It is this very philosophy - the philosophy of the ages, no less - that Eubank Sr has embraced in his approach to the fight game. In response he has attracted not only ridcule but even contempt from those for whom the sport is reduced to a a business and glorified scrap. Such a facile rendering of the sport has done much to push it towards the long grass of mediocrity and cynicism, forced to compete with MMA and WWE wrestling as a result.
This contempt for Chris Eubank Sr from some in the game has reached the point where promoter Eddie Hearn has seen fit to rip the piss out of the man by impersonating his voice. Just pause to consider how perverse it is to have a man who's probably never thrown a punch in anger in his entire life, laughing at one of the bravest and toughest men ever to lace up a pair of boxing gloves. Love or loathe the man, you cannot but respect the way he insists on ploughing his own furrow. It is why the likes of Hearn and Warren find him so difficult to deal with, the fact he refuses to bow down and accept anything less than the cream when it comes to managing his very able son's career.
Some of the points he made during his recent IFL interview were impossible to argue with - such as the fact that it is the fighters not the promoters who should receive the lion's share of revenue generated by marquee fights; such as the fact there is nobody better qualified than he to steer his son or be in his corner; such as the fact that promoters are in it for the money more than anything else; and such as the fact he has proved in his own career the wisdom of his methods, however "deluded" they may have and continue to appear to others.
Watching him take time to consider his words, his determination to articulate himself as powerfully and eloquently as he can, is a refreshing reminder that while undoubtedly a brutal sport, boxing does not need to be approached brutishly.
Eubank Sr is also quite correct to point out that his son is one of the most explosive and exciting fighters around. However as to him "wrecking Golovokin", this is debatable. Having said that, nobody thought he had a prayer going in against the wrecking machine that was Nigel Benn back in 1990, did they? With both he and Eubank Jr supremely confident of the outcome to this fight, when it eventually comes, it's already guaranteed to be a riveting prospect.
The sport of boxing needs characters like Chris Eubank Sr. After all, just as in life itself, for those who excel we are talking a game that is chess not chequers.
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