Best British Middleweight/Super-Middleweight from the Golden Era?

[JUYJUY]

In terms of ability I mean.

[AintGottaClue]

guess i gotta go with benn, i think he woulda beaten them all anyway

[JUYJUY]

guess i gotta go with benn, i think he woulda beaten them all anyway

Watson, Douglas, Eubank and Collins all beat Benn!

But yeah, Nigel Benn at his best is the best we've ever seen in this country.

[Tha Greatest]

guess i gotta go with benn, i think he woulda beaten them all anyway

Dumb ****!

Herol Graham would've beat all of them, he would've beat the 85 version of Hagler too...

[JUYJUY]

86 Graham has a very good chance against 86 Hagler.

[theclawoftheTiger]

Hero Graham was the first of this bunch to come into the limelight .. Bomber won the 1978 ABAs in what was his first ever ABAs and hardly even got hit once, he turned pro straight after and mesmorised us with his elusive defence skills ..
Next into the limelight were Douglas and Watson .. they were such high quality that whoever won the North East London divisonals out of those two were guaranteed to win the nationals because they were that good and both were predicted future world champions in the pros ..
Next up, Nigel Benn .. Benn soon became the hottest prospect in boxing ..
And then ofcourse Chris Eubank was a pugilist like none before him lol ..


Here are the records of these guys when they shared a ring with eachother ..

Rod Douglas W PTS4 Michael Watson (1983 ABA West Ham divs final)

Rod Douglas W PTS4 Michael Watson (1984 ABA West Ham divs final)

Rod Douglas W PTS4 Nigel Benn (1985 ABA West Ham divs final)

Nigel Benn W PTS4 Rod Douglas (1986 ABA West Ham divs final)

Michael Watson W TKO6 Nigel Benn (Commonwealth Middleweight Championship, May 1989)

Rod Douglas vs. Chris Eubank (very competitive sparring, July/August/September/October 1989)
according to witnesses, Douglas vs. Eubank was very even

Herol Graham W TKO9 Rod Douglas (British Middleweight Championship, October 1989)
Douglas suffers severe injuries in this bout and has to retire

Herol Graham vs. Chris Eubank (sparring sessions, late 1989 and throughout 1990)
according to witnesses, Graham was getting the better of Eubank

Chris Eubank W TKO9 Nigel Benn (World Middleweight Championship, November 1990)

Chris Eubank W PTS12 Michael Watson (World Middleweight Championship, June 1991)

Chris Eubank W TKO12 Michael Watson (World Super Middleweight Championship, September 1991)
Watson suffers severe injuries in this bout and has to retire

Nigel Benn D 12 Chris Eubank (World Super Middleweight Championship, October 1993)

Steve Collins W PTS12 Chris Eubank (World Super Middleweight Championship, March 1995)

Steve Collins W PTS12 Chris Eubank (World Super Middleweight Championship, September 1995)

Steve Collins W TKO4 Nigel Benn (World Super Middleweight Championship, July 1996)

Steve Collins W TKO6 Nigel Benn (World Super Middleweight Championship, November 1996)

Joe Calzaghe W PTS12 Chris Eubank (World Super Middleweight Championship, October 1997)


I believe that Herol Graham avoided Nigel Benn in 1988 and 1989 ..
I believe that Chris Eubank avoided Herol Graham in 1990 and 1991 ..
and I believe that Steve Collins ducked Joe Calzaghe in 1997 ..

[theclawoftheTiger]

Who was the best ..? Its a very difficult question ..

Steve Collins and Joe Calzaghe definately are not the best .. so lets get those two out of the way early .. Eubank in Sept95 and Oct97 was a complete shadow of his former self due to all the weight draining over the yrs and all the rounds and he proved in the first fight with Collins that he was the superior fighter and yes I believe he was robbed at Mill Street .. and in any case he was past his best anyway ..

Rod Douglas was a great prospect in the amateurs and he was the one everybody was getting excited about .. he became the first man to ever beat the seemingly invincible Nigel Benn but then Benn reversed the loss the following yr knocking Douglas down a few times ( Rod never had been knocked down before ) and Rod suddenly had no attention anymore because all the attention now centered on Benn ..

Benn carried a sense of invincibility about him in his first few yrs as a pro and nobody wanted him due to the murderous degree of power he carried in his fists, Goosen tried desperately to make a Nunn vs. Benn fight in 1988 because he felt it would set the boxing world alight, but after Nunn saw videotapes of Benns fights Nunn backed out and started making excuses .. Benn offered Herol Graham tonnes of money for a british title fight but Bomber wasnt interested because he was scared in my opinion, Benn knew he had to beat Graham to prove he was the best middleweight in britain .. so Benn was the most feared of the bunch coming through the ranks .. it wasnt until after the Anthony Logan fight that people wanted to fight Benn ..

Im going to go through a basic elimination process, picking out weaknesses to decide who was the best all arounder on ability ..

Herol Graham had the best elusive defence skills, he had fast and accurate hands and he had many tools such as switchhitting .. but at the end of the day Bomber was not a good all around fighter .. Bomber desperately lacked punching power .. Bomber wasnt very good at infighting or even that good at circling opponents or body shots .. and he's a little chinny .. against Benn at Benns sharpest before Benn lost to Watson its hard not to see a Benn win .. before Benns fight with Logan I believe Bomber would be petrified ( who wouldnt be? ) and that Benn would get through at some point and win ..

Chris Eubank had some of the best skills that I have ever seen in a boxing ring ..! He was absolutely brilliant at his best, but the problem with Chris is that he wasnt at his best often enough .. Chris kind of often would spend two mins of a round just posing and strutting and messing about .. I believe that Chris had the potential to be fighter of the decade, he had great focus, he was looking at his opponents gloves all the time and he was an excellent puncher too .. but all that was only up until the Watson tragedy, after the Watson tragedy he lost all his finishing instinct and found it so difficult to have any focused aggression ..

Nigel Benn ofcourse was awesome at his best too, but again he lacked consistency, he had natural talent but he lacked application, and he just never had constant concentration .. he lost fair and square to talented, more defensive fighters Watson and Eubank when he was in his young prime ..

Rod Douglas could of been the best of the bunch, he was such an exciting young prospect in the pros but his people pushed him in with Bomber a little too quickly .. and I do believe Douglas' loss to Benn affected him and he lost a little enthusiasm to achieve what he could of .. and at the end of the day he lost fair and square to a talented, more defensive fighter Graham ..

The best of the 'brit bunch' ..? MICHAEL WATSON

Watson is my pick for the best of the bunch .. Watson was the best .. I mean he was such a fine counterpuncher, he also had a tight defence, very very smooth operator with good ring smarts .. he was so smooth, so classy, so consistent .. he was the man who stood up to the bully when he stopped Benn in his tracks and was the only man who ever started as a favourite to beat Mike McCallum, the only man who ever made McCallum an underdog and he forced McCallum to be better than ever against him .. as somebody else said in another thread he dominated the second half of the first Eubank fight and dominated the second Eubank fight before the tragic ending .. Watson changed his style against Eubank the second time, he decided to attack attack attack which was not his usual style .. but it worked brilliantly for 10 rounds .. his career was cut so short because he was improving all the time, and he could be a living legend right now had he not bumped into Eubank and that tragic uppercut ..

So yeh, I decided to vote for Watson ..

[TheEvilSaint]

JUYJUY, ur pathetic.

its one thing to suck benns and eubanks ****s on a regular basis, but u went ahead and started a poll about this bull**** over a bull**** division. SMWs are just blown up MWs who cant make the weight to LHW.

we all know how much you LOVE benn and eubank. do you have shrines in your house devoted to them? why is it that your the only one on this site who regularly starts threads about fighters how no1 else cares about except you and ur fellow brits?

get a life, JUYJUY.

[Parodius]

Dumb ****!

Herol Graham would've beat all of them, he would've beat the 85 version of Hagler too...

I hope this is a joke. You're sounding like JuyJuy here. Graham would've never beaten Hagler.

[theclawoftheTiger]

bull**** over a bull**** division. SMWs are just blown up MWs who cant make the weight to LHW.

SMW was the hottest division in boxing in the earlytomid 90s .. former world middleweight champs Eubank and Benn were followed by other former world middleweight champs such as Nunn, Barkley, Toney, RJjnr, McLennan ..

supermiddle was full of superstars and had superfights such as-
Benn vs. Eubank II which was world champion vs. world champion,
Toney vs. RJjnr which was world champion vs. world champion,
Benn vs. McLennan which was world champion vs. world champion ..

also, Barkley vs. Toney was world champion vs. world champion
and Eubank vs. Collins was world champion vs. world champion ..

Nunn was a top five p4p fighter in the early 90s .. and then in 1994 you had Toney, McLennan and RJjnr all top five p4p ranked ..
march 1st 1995 KO mag rankings Eubank and Benn were both top five p4p ..

Benn made 10 defences of WBC title at supermiddle,
Eubank made 15 world title defences at supermiddle,
it was hot property at the time bro ..