Eubank fights Welshman Liam Williams on Saturday in Cardiff – and he is insistent he wants to ‘end his career’
Chris Eubank Jnr has been in the boxing business for nearly two decades now but, to many, he is still defined by the one man he will never fight: his dad. “I was 14, 15 when I first started boxing and had the dream of wanting to be a world champion,” he says. “Yet aside from my dad, I wanted to be my own man. Having the same name has made that extremely difficult.”
Difficult, yes, but not impossible. Earmarked by Sky Sports as one of their latest marquee fighters, Eubank Jnr brings the curtain up on the boxing season proper against Liam Williams on Saturday. Win that and a middleweight world title shot awaits. A world belt will surely be enough for son to emerge from the shadow of the man he still reverentially refers to as “father”.
Not that it was all bad having a man as famous as Eubank Snr in your corner. Father was prominent in every press conference at the start, still the strutting peacock centre-stage in his son’s early career. But it was needed then, explains Eubank Jnr, now with a record of 31 victories and two defeats – both losses on points against world champions George Groves and Billy Joe Saunders.
“At the beginning of my career I didn’t want to do the whole media thing,” he says. “I didn’t really like talking to the media. I just wanted to fight, I wanted to prove the doubters and the haters wrong. That’s all I cared about. That’s where father came in and took the pressure off me. He took that role over the first few years.”
Senior has taken a backward step since his son began training with Roy Jones Jnr, the American ring legend, in 2019. Twenty years ago, Jones – a world champion from middleweight to heavyweight – was arguably the greatest exponent in the entire sport. If anybody can help forge champions, it is Jones. No wonder Senior is happy to retreat into the shadows.
“Now I’m a 10-year veteran in the sport,” says Junior. “I’m comfortable but I wasn’t when I was 22. He is not needed to speak for me anymore. He’s also really happy that I am working with Roy, fully behind it. We have a good team now.”
The affectations of privilege – the walking cane, the monocle – may be forever linked to the Eubank name but father ensured son learnt the family trade at the sharp end.
As a teenager, he was sent to Las Vegas – a far cry from his public school upbringing – for two years to finish secondary school. Reports at the time suggested Senior had ‘given away’ his son to a virtual stranger named Irene Hutton – something Junior is at pains to correct. “It’s not true what the newspapers said that my old man ‘gave me away’,” he says. “She wasn’t a stranger, they had been in contact for a while and they carried each other’s trust. They were friends.
“We lived with her. I graduated from high school and actually got a scholarship to UNLV [University of Nevada, Las Vegas], and I always regret not going to college in the US. But I had to come back to England to box.”
The second formative memory was a spell in Havana, where Eubank Jnr sparred with a Cuban Olympic heavyweight – “the biggest beating I’ve ever experienced,” he recalls.
Both events were the father uncovering and weeding out weaknesses in his offspring; testing his mettle. The young fighter passed them both with flying colours. In Nevada, Eubank Jnr cut his teeth as a boxer, in and out of gyms and winning the Golden Gloves tournament title in his age and weight category.
It was a rich, deep time in learning the dark trade inside the ropes. “I got my ass kicked every week by top pros in the Top Rank Gym and later at Floyd Mayweather’s gym when he opened it up. I only had 26 fights as an amateur but in reality I had 526 fights because I was sparring two to three times a week, with lots of top pros.
“I remember sparring Zab Judah and Chad Dawson. I was trained by Mike McCallum and then Floyd Mayweather Snr. The things you learn around these people you can’t just [learn] anywhere.
“You have to go to the city of sin. Most people would think that the last place you would want to go is Las Vegas – all they see is The Strip, the clubs, the girls, the drugs, the strip clubs, but outside that you have the real city where yes, there is good and bad, but it is always full of fighters flocking to Vegas to spar and fight. I learnt so much there.”
The relationship with Jones has been fascinating to witness. Eubank’s style has morphed from a physical terror in the ring to a more finessed fighter, yet still there is more to come after two years together. “The support, belief and backing I have from Roy gives you a helluva lot when you consider what a legend he is in the sport,” Eubank says. “It’s a great feeling heading towards your goals, what you want to achieve. A confidence booster for sure.
“Roy has changed my outlook on boxing and given me a new lease of life. There wasn’t more I thought I could learn. But I realised how wrong I was. I’m still learning new things in the gym. It’s crazy.”
Less controversial than the old man, but equally cold in his calculations, Eubank insists his dislike for opponent Williams is genuine. “I want to end his career. I’ve made no secret of it, I don’t respect him. I don’t like him. I believe he gives the sport a bad name, and people like him need to be pushed out of the sport. I want to get him out of the sport of boxing. You have kids watching us and copying us and this is a guy who talks badly about someone’s family and says stuff.”
“On the night it’s going to be very spiteful on my part,” he adds. He’s got a very doggish fighting style, but that lends itself perfectly to me. I’ll have a look at him for a round and then I’ll decide which way I want to take him out.”
Eubank’s expression does not change as he coldly plots his route to victory in Welshman Williams’ backyard. “He’s not a guy who runs, he’s not elusive. I don’t see any great defence. Therefore I don’t see how he goes 12 rounds, he does not have the power and I don’t see any way he wins the fight. I believe I will knock him out.”
But then the other side of Eubank – the realist, the open minded fighter – emerges: “But that’s the great thing about boxing. One punch can change everything. You never know when it’s going to come. You can get old overnight, as they say. Maybe I’m chinny, he’ll land something and I’ll age overnight. You never know in boxing.”
Eubank vs Williams is live on Sky Sports on Saturday night from the Motorpoint Arena, Cardiff