When British middleweights ruled.

Blood and thunder Benn blazed and Eubank posed, but no one dared to fight the Bomber. Kevin Mitchell recalls a golden era for British boxing Sunday August 3, 2003 The Observer The day Chris Eubank took his monacle, ego and kitbag down to Ronnie Davies's Brighton gym in the late Eighties - after three years perfecting his strut in the rings of New Jersey - one of boxing's maddest adventures began. With Ronnie there to pick up his cane, Eubank indulged himself, for a decade, in a level of exhibitionism not witnessed since Muhammad Ali was at his loudest and prettiest in the Seventies. He was lucky to have Davies at his side, just as Ali was grateful for the patience and counsel of Angelo Dundee. As Ali needed Sonny Liston, Joe Frazier, George Foreman and a host of other foils, so Eubank, resplendent and ridiculous at the same time as a pseudo-country squire, could not have kept his roadshow going without the participation of Nigel Benn, in particular, Michael Watson, tragically, Henry Wharton, Steve Collins towards the end, and the man none of them dared to share a ring with, Herol Graham. They all grew out of the division, following each other up to super-middleweight or beyond, but it was at 11st 6lb that the drama started. In a series of often exhilarating bouts, these marvellous fighters lit up their sport and our lives. Graham's part in this story is noises off, a tap-dancer in the wings. It is a measure of how they feared him that his peers all avoided the Sheffield Bomber, except occasionally in the gym, where he could embarrass anyone. The most gifted of Britain's fine sextet of middleweights in one of the best periods for the sport in Britain and for the division, as well as super-middleweight, Graham should have won a world title but didn't. If Graham was the best and the unluckiest, how good were the others? Davies, a fair middleweight himself (while admitting, 'The older you get, the better you were'), maintained Eubank fell short of his potential. There certainly was no one else you'd rather be cornered alongside in a dark alley, he reckoned, but he trained erratically, often going into a fight drained to the limit. Much of the posturing during a contest was actually Eubank conserving his energy. Against mediocrities such as Dan Sherry, Mauricio Amaral and Dan Schommer, he was lucky to get the decision; against Benn in their first fight, and in defeat by Carl Thompson in his last, he was magnificent. If the posing and proselytising suited Eubank's personality, it also perplexed opponents and annoyed punters to the point where they made him a multi-millionaire by streaming through the turnstiles in the hope of seeing him knocked off his perch. Perversely, when he lost, fight fans embraced him and he finished his career as he would have wished, loved as a caricature of an English eccentric. How different it was at the beginning. The first fight in this round robin was between Benn and Watson in a tent in Finsbury Park in May 1989. Watson tucked up, absorbed the Dark Destroyer's heavy leather and knocked him out with a jab in the sixth. It was a masterclass in strategy and execution, Watson at his best. A lesser fighter than Benn might have quit, but he went to the United States (he never lost to an American) and rebuilt his career so completely that he would reach his peak six years later, at 12 stone, on a night of terrible drama in London Docklands against Gerald McClellan, then considered to be the best boxer, pound-for-pound, in the world. Before that, Benn would meet the man for whom he reserved little affection until after they stopped boxing. Never a huge middleweight, he had the WBO title of that division and put it on the line against Eubank in November 1990, in Birmingham. Physically more imposing, Eubank stopped him in nine, leaving Benn bloodied and exhausted on the ropes. You knew a rematch was inevitable. Before that payday, Eubank accepted the persistent challenge of Watson in June 1991, and won a close decision that some good judges felt he didn't deserve. When they met again, at White Hart Lane in the September of the same year, for the newly created super-middleweight title, the result was overtaken by events. Watson, ahead on every card, knocked Eubank down in the 11th; much of the crowd celebrated. With admirable reserves of will and strength, Eubank rose and finished the round on top. In the 12th, having been knocked down again, he caught Watson with an upper-cut. Watson collapsed and later went into a coma. As anyone who witnessed his five-day walk to complete this year's London marathon will know, he was left physically wrecked, but spiritually intact. Benn, meanwhile, set about his own rehabilitation, blowing away the likes of Robbie Sims and Dan Sherry on his way to beating Mauro Galvano for the WBC 12-stone championship in October 1992. The Welshman Nicky Piper lasted 11 rounds, Galvano tried in vain again and the Londoner Lou Gent went in four in what Benn called 'a right old tear-up'. The Ilford man had put behind him the scars of defeat against Watson and Eubank and was as worked up for his return against the Brighton Bombast as for nearly any fight of his career. It arrived at Old Trafford in October, 1993, and ended in a draw. Benn was the more disappointed of the two. Here the great feud of modern British boxing ended (if you don't count Eubank's spats with Naseem Hamed); Benn would go on to beat McClellan then, at last knockings, lose twice to the estimable Irishman Steve Collins. Eubank would embark on his 10-fight Sky deal, an exercise in mismatching and hype. Wharton - who had unsuccessfully challenged Benn in February 1994 - took Eubank the distance in December 1994, and the champion's run was halted by Collins over 12 rounds the following March. Collins got the better of Eubank again, six months later, satisfied to have seen off the Englishmen twice apiece. Eubank fought on, losing to Joe Calzaghe for the vacant WBO super-middleweight title in October 1997, and twice to the tough Mancunian Carl Thompson the following year, the last time grotesquely bruised and halted in the ninth, the round in which he'd finished Benn all those years before. Eubank retired, Calzaghe still reigns and Robin Reid, briefly WBC super-middleweight champion and conqueror of Wharton, boxes on. The cycle continues. But it will be a long time before the men fighting at and around middleweight in this country will generate as much excitement as we saw in the roaring Nineties. Britain's middleweights: the war of words 'Eubank has forgotten his roots. He is of African origin and seems to have forgotten that - instead he pretends to be an Englishman.' Steve Collins on Chris Eubank 'To be accused of ignoring my roots is pig ignorant. Collins's racist comment has focused my mind on the fight and I will beat him.' Eubank on Collins 'I do detest him, I really do. It's no joke. I can't stand him.' Nigel Benn on Eubank 'In accordance to the way that Benn speaks, he is not educated. Sure, he's educated to a certain extent, but under different circumstances he would be a bouncer on some door in the West End and he'd have three kids from three different women ... I am a superior person to that. I have finer points. So, superior in mentality, yes. As a fighter in accordance to the trade, yes.' Eubank on Nigel Benn 'It would give me a terrific sense of satisfaction to be the man who sent both Eubank and Benn into retirement. Benn doesn't need me to tell him that he's over the hill because, deep down, he knows it.' Collins on Benn 'This is so personal it makes Chris Eubank look like an old friend of mine by comparison.' Benn on Collins