BRIGHTON, England – Just when his family needed him the most, Harlem Eubank did exactly as required and got back to winning ways. Against a gutsy but limited Josh Wagner inside the Brighton Centre, Eubank showcased all his flash to win pretty much every minute of every round. After 10, the judges scored unanimously in his favor via scores of 100-90 (twice) and 99-91.
There was pressure on Eubank, not least because this was the first time he’d entered a professional ring on the back of a defeat, but more so because his cousin, Chris Eubank Jnr, suffered the most miserable reverse of his entire career only six days before.
During fight week, Eubank had insisted that he wouldn’t allow Conor Benn’s comprehensive rematch victory over Junior play on his mind. Yet it certainly reminded him that boxing is a short career, one in which everything can change at the sound of a different opening bell.
Last time out Harlem himself had been taught a similar lesson. During the biggest payday of his career, a sizeable step-up against Jack Catterall and the kind of opportunity Eubank had worked several years to secure, the contest curtailed abruptly at the end of the sixth round. With both nursing facial wounds, it went to cards that rightly favored Catterall. “It taught me that a fight can end at any time,” Harlem said.
Eager to not make the same mistake twice, Eubank started brightly enough as he speared his jab into the stomach of his Canadian rival. But if this was a vehicle to get back to winning ways, Wagner had no intention of making it an easy ride. Moreover, the visitor was here to make the most of every minute himself.
The hefty underdog, with the battleground in sight, clearly enjoyed the sound of ‘Sweet Caroline’ as he made his way from the changing rooms. Some might say that Neil Diamond’s anthem has been overplayed somewhat in recent years but Wagner clearly isn’t one of them. He leapt up and down while screaming along to those familiar beats, only to dizzy himself to such an extent he had to be calmed so that he could negotiate the steps to the ring.
Senses regained, he played his part in that opening session and, in the second, even caught Eubank with a left hook so good (so good, so good) he could barely contain a smile. Yet it was Eubank, gliding inside and out, who was bossing the action.
As the Brighton crowd started to chant his name in the third, Eubank upped his output further. Those accurate jabs to the body were joined by rapid right hands over the top and, against this ever-willing opposition, Harlem again resembled the promising talent he had for so many years been.
Wagner occasionally reminded Eubank, 22-1 (9 KOs), that he was here and willing. Another left hooked into Eubank in the fourth, a solid right snared the local hero’s attention in the fifth, and a heartier shot scored in the eighth, but such moments were noteworthy only for their rarity.
Wagner, 19-2 (10 KOs), was certainly tough and likely just what Eubank needed. Able to throw his flashy combinations – a three-punch salvo in the sixth was particularly impressive – the welterweight contender was afforded the time to move through the gears almost at will. Wagner, try as he might, couldn’t slow Eubank down nor could he keep up and, in the ninth, the Englishman sensed that his rival might be on the brink of breaking down altogether.
The 10th and final round was more of the same. Eubank, in complete control, clattered Wagner again and again, the sounds of Sweet Caroline by now a distant memory to those battered and bruised ears.
It wasn’t perfect but then Harlem, like his cousin, and uncle before them, has never been that. What he proved tonight, however, is exactly what he needed to prove: After a difficult period for the famous fighting family, Harlem stands alone as a Eubank with a fighting future ahead of him.
In chief-support, Lucas Roehrig – protégé of George Groves – was expected to cruise to 7-0 against Brice Clavier but the Frenchman came armed with a savage left hand in which he packed numerous lessons for the young prospect.
The first one – courtesy of that left – exploded onto Roehrig’s unguarded chin barely a second after the referee, who would later score the Londoner a 78-72 winner, had ordered the pair to stop boxing. No knockdown was rightly ruled but the favorite’s legs, which jellied briefly as he tried to straighten them, told the tale of his condition. Roehrig spent the remainder of the opening round with his chin in the air and Clavier couldn’t miss it.
The pattern continued into the second round. Roehrig looked on the brink of being stopped when more lefts were hurled over the top, each one thwacking into the 23-year-old’s face which was by now stained with blood. As his knees continued to dip, and his arms scrambled for something to hold on to, any kind of turnaround seemed inexplicable.
Then came the stench of home cooking. Roehrig desperately bundled Clavier to the floor, clipping him midfall with his right hand, and the referee ruled it a legitimate knockdown. The boos, which came from the local fans, were fully justified and the break in action enjoyed far more by Roehrig. Should he go on to enjoy significant success in his boxing career then this round, and this fight, should be regarded as being pivotal.
Sometimes fighters need to learn quickly and Roehrig, by the fourth, had taken the target off his chin and was boxing smarter – if not entirely smartly. Still Clavier, 13-7-1 (7 KOs), pressed ahead but he was now only sporadically enjoying the success that came so frequently mere minutes before.
Credit to Roehrig, however. In full control by the fifth, he brushed off the sight of blood coming from a new wound – directly above his left eye – to show some composure at last. By the seventh, it was Clavier who seemed likeliest to fall and that he almost did when a right uppercut soared beneath his guard and, on impact, sent him spinning to his own corner.
Roehrig would lose a point in the last round, seemingly for low blows, but by the end, and as if by magic, his record did indeed read 7-0 (4 KOs).
