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The sad tale of Chris Eubank 2-2
The sad tale of Chris Eubank 2-2
After the eight I knew I was in trouble
-Chris Eubank
As Eubank said months later, 'When I heard the bell after the eight I knew I was in deep trouble. Michael Watson had shown a strength which I didn't think possible. It felt unnatrual. It was like facing an abnormal man. He was phenomenal. I wasn't scared of him - I suppose you might say my attitude was one which I held more in accordance with fate. Y ou know, what will be, will be...if I am to lose so be it but, I kept telling myself, just go down fighting...
'I knew that to have a chance I had to knock him down but that seemed unlikely. So all I wanted to do fot those last four rounds was to stay on my feet. I was still proud. I wouldn't quit. In the back of my mind there was a small flame, the hope that if he made a mistake I'd take my chance. 'If he does anything wrong.' I thought, 'then I'll take that chance. 'If he does anything wrong,' I thought.
The ninth passes, the tenth passes - nothing. He's on top...and then the eleventh came and still I don't know how...it happened in a heavy fog..'
With two rounds left Watson just had to stay on his feet to ensure himself the sweetest victory. Ronnie Davis - Eubank's shaved pit-bull of a trainer - roused his spent fighter one last time. In earlier fights I had seen Eubank instruct Davis to slap him across the face after a poor round. Now Eubank looked as if he had nothing left. 'C'mon!' Ronnie exhorted, 'it's not over yet! C'mon!'
Perhaps those small words worked some magic. Eubank came out punching and backed up a surprised Watson. 'Maybe..just maybe..' each swing appeared to say. But then, as if clearing his head after a stumble, Watson powered a right cross and a left hook to the head. Eubank went down, as weary as he was legless. White Hart Lane skipped a beat.
'He's down, the bloody ****er's down at last!' shouted the Irish writer, pulling at my sleeve deliriously.
I saw every step and movement with stainless clarity. It was as if each shot was played out with deliberate precision, second by second. Or, more likely, that the reel I now see in my head is framed by video rather than mere memory.
Eubank was on his hands and knees and I found myself standing, lost in the drama. Roy Francis, the referee, turned towards Watson as he counted out 'two', making sure that he had returned to a neutral corner.
Watson hurried from one side of the ring to the other but Eubank had already pulled himself up on one knee. Before 'four' could even be said he was up, his back to Watson who was seperated from him by the referee's bulky frame. And then Watson closed in on his victim. His mind must have already entered that zone of emptiness which would shroud him for so long.
All his frustration and longing must have obliterated any thought - of pity or anything else.Michael Watson was a fighter and fighters ride on instinct when they see hurt in their opponent.
Watson came in for the kill. It was then he was hit. The punch landed in a scything arc which pundits would have termed 'perfect' if it had not wrought such havoc. The impact on Michael Watson's jaw knocked him off his feet. He landed on his back. He was down and all but out.
None of us saw it then but Watson's head rocked hard against the third and lowest rope. For a hundreth of a second his head may have rested there, as if cripped in a cat's-cradle made out of an elastc band by a child. But then it snapped back, the rope inducing more of a whiplash than Eubank's right hand. Watson struggled up, looking more groggy than Eubank had done only an instant before. The bell rang - for the end of that round and, as we now know, something far worse.
Michael Watson's brain had already begun to bleed. But there was nothing for us to see. Another man alongside me, a man who'd been quiet all through th fight, started chattering, as if in prayer, 'Three more minutes..only three more minutes, Michael. Please God, please...' I saw Barry Hearn rush over to Eubank's corner. He was shouting hoarsely at Eubank, looking over at Watson, 'He's gone, he's ****ing gone..' Eubank stared back at him vacantly, as if seeing a ghost, like he himself had 'gone' from his body.
Jimmy Tibbs and his corner were devestated. They showered water over their stricken fighter, buffing him round the face tenderly, asking 'Are you okay..are you all right..' I saw Michael Watson nod. But from where I sat it was impossible to see into his eyes. He staggrered up on spindly legs for the final round.
It was the one moment we had all been waiting for, that cataclysmic finale, a blinding finish where one fighter 'takes out' the other, where a man lurches against the ropes and tries to stop himnmself being swallowed up in blackness, where one boxer wins and the other loses, where all our innate ferocity and misery gets buried with those punches and we supposedly come out of his knockout feeling exhilarated and drained of shabby desire. I wanted to see if Watson could survive the inevitable assault, if he could somehow drag himself from the hole into which he'd fallen. Neither I nor anyone else around me wanted our climax, that certain knockout, to be denied. The grace and skill of Watson in the preceding rounds were forgotten. He was slipping away and yet we still wanted to see a few more punches - as much from him as Eubank.
Eubank rushed towards him with flailing arms. Most of his shattered punches missed. After twenty seconds, with Watson creaking like a badly hacked tree, Roy Francis stepped between the fighters. They disappeared from view as the ring was engulfed. Hundredds of People clambered towards the ropes as if by coming close enough they could convince themselves of the truth.
The next few minutes are lost forever. I was only returned to reality by the sight of Eubank's face on a television monitor a few feet away. I watched him talking but could only hear the scuffle which had broken out on the edge of the ring between two rival groups of fans. Eubank hollered at Gary Newborn, the ITV interviewer, 'I want him tested. I want him tested to see if he has anything in his blood. Because he was too..he was so strong. I want his urine tested because no one can be that strong..' But for me, then, his words were drowned by the ringside brawl. I turned away - feeling sick with the frenzy of the night - and walked up the same aisle which Michael Watson had marched down only an hour before with the crowd singing his name.
But after it was waved to an end I needed the extraordinary to be subsumed by the ordinary again. I wanted both boxers to get up, to hug and even kiss each other, to say 'what a fight, man, what a fight - but its over now...
But still, we waited for Watson to get up.
'I don't ****ing believe it...I don't ****ing believe it...' a strapping man said as he snapped the waistband on his tuxedo.
'It looks bad for Michael..he's still down..' his stork-like friend said as he stubbed out his cigar against the back of a chair before craning his neck over the rising crowd.
There was no sign of Watson. He still lay on the canvas. The tall man gasped. 'They're bringing out the stretcher.'
'Nah, nah, he's just knackered ...he'll be okay..won't he?' Tuxedo - man asked.
'He's not moving. Christ, I'm telling you, he's not moving...'
I headed for the tunnel leading to the dressing room. As I waited outside the shadowed passage I kept hearing the same words: 'He's not getting up...'
Five minutes passed, then ten.
And then I saw Eric Secombe, shaking and crying. His pale face jerked and twitched in cruel little spasms. 'No, no...' he kept saying. I followed his staring eyes and saw the stretcher carrying Michael Watson. His body lay still on the greying surface. I knew then that something terrible had happened. I heard Eric Secombe cry again. 'No, Michael, no...'
I could not free my own brain from Chris Eubank's assertion before the fight that he knew that 'my job is to hurt the other fighter as badly as I can. When I have hurt him and he is dazed and bleeding against the ropes then I must smash my fist into his face again. He expects it, the crowd demand it. They want you to finish the other man off.
And that's why I hate boxing.'
Source:
The Dark Trade by Donald McRae
Next:
The betrayal of Bill Cayton
[IMG]http://media.***********.com/image/tyson%20berbick/Kalasinn/TysonvsBerbick1986.jpg[/IMG]
Tyson posed for the ringside photographers while Berbick sat on his stool, being checked by the ringside physician. The new campion was flanked by Rooney and Lott and Jacobs, and, of course, a beaming Don King. The goal had been achieved, but at what price. For now Don King was in the picture. The octopus of the boxing world had been, of necessity, permitted to wind his tentacles gently around Mike Tyson, and when events less than a year and a half later afforded him the opportunity he was waiting for, King would tighten those tentacles around the most valuable athlete in the world until his grip could not be lossened.
But still, we waited for Watson to get up.
'I don't ****ing believe it...I don't ****ing believe it...' a strapping man said as he snapped the waistband on his tuxedo.
'It looks bad for Michael..he's still down..' his stork-like friend said as he stubbed out his cigar against the back of a chair before craning his neck over the rising crowd.
There was no sign of Watson. He still lay on the canvas. The tall man gasped. 'They're bringing out the stretcher.'
'Nah, nah, he's just knackered ...he'll be okay..won't he?' Tuxedo - man asked.
'He's not moving. Christ, I'm telling you, he's not moving...'
I headed for the tunnel leading to the dressing room. As I waited outside the shadowed passage I kept hearing the same words: 'He's not getting up...'
Five minutes passed, then ten.
And then I saw Eric Secombe, shaking and crying. His pale face jerked and twitched in cruel little spasms. 'No, no...' he kept saying. I followed his staring eyes and saw the stretcher carrying Michael Watson. His body lay still on the greying surface. I knew then that something terrible had happened. I heard Eric Secombe cry again. 'No, Michael, no...'
I could not free my own brain from Chris Eubank's assertion before the fight that he knew that 'my job is to hurt the other fighter as badly as I can. When I have hurt him and he is dazed and bleeding against the ropes then I must smash my fist into his face again. He expects it, the crowd demand it. They want you to finish the other man off.
And that's why I hate boxing.'
Source:
The Dark Trade by Donald McRae
Next:
The betrayal of Bill Cayton
[IMG]http://media.***********.com/image/tyson%20berbick/Kalasinn/TysonvsBerbick1986.jpg[/IMG]
Tyson posed for the ringside photographers while Berbick sat on his stool, being checked by the ringside physician. The new campion was flanked by Rooney and Lott and Jacobs, and, of course, a beaming Don King. The goal had been achieved, but at what price. For now Don King was in the picture. The octopus of the boxing world had been, of necessity, permitted to wind his tentacles gently around Mike Tyson, and when events less than a year and a half later afforded him the opportunity he was waiting for, King would tighten those tentacles around the most valuable athlete in the world until his grip could not be lossened.