The McLaren 720s is a fast and expensive car. Sometime on Sunday, Chris Eubank Jr. will be driving his new one, with a favorite mixtape jammed into the USB port inside its orange/brown interior. $250,000 of speed and status. On Sunday he can get some wind in his hair along the coast road from his eco-home in Hove, Brighton to?well?.anywhere he chooses. Some would say that during the journey across the southern British coast he may well feel the kinds of emotional highs that are in no way akin to leaving work on a Friday afternoon in a Buick, or an Audi A3 fastback 1.6tdi. No, my friend, his experience will be well above and beyond the call of normal 9 to 5 duty and experience. But, we?re not talking about middle management here, we?re talking about boxing: a sport with so many negatives that only the most churlish would begrudge Chris this present to himself. It?s not like he has a garage of Rolls-Royces, unlike the moron King of Las Vegas. Curse that imbecile waving his wealth like a shrunken penis on the side of a busy highway, smile on his semi-sentient face. And no-one understanding the reasons behind it all as they drive themselves home to a microwaved meal and a six-pack.
Eubank is fighting James DeGale this weekend in London. It?s a bout that has sparked a minor amount of interest amongst the locals. Both men are polarizing characters, and both have failed to achieve the kinds of orbits their early careers promised us and them. Still, in a super middleweight division largely dominated by British fighters?with Callum Smith looming large over everyone?Eubank and DeGale are in the top ten and probably deserve this WBO world title bout. For DeGale, it?s likely to be the last chance, and the final time he binds his fists in anger should he lose. Repeated Injury, and age (33), and a long, hardy career won?t allow his pride to keep him going if Eubank stops him on Saturday.
An on-form DeGale is a beautiful sight in a boxing ring. He is slick, fast, elusive, and angles his punches outside of the box. He is a natural boxer; instinct and muscle memory. Eubank is a product of a weird and intense boxing school presided over by his father. For the first time ever, according to Eubank Jr., he has been trained full-time; importing Nate Vasquez from Mayweather?s empire in Las Vegas. His father, though still as massive part of the secretive and colorful Eubank camp, has taken this time to expand his media profile around the world. His appointment as a sheriff in the USA is so weird that I can?t begin to imagine the face of the person who signed that deal off. Were they asleep? Intoxicated? Blackmailed? Imagine the mental anguish of letting Eubank Sr. drive around in public with a badge and the full weight of the law behind him and his bow-tie. Weeping Jesus?.
Eubank Jr. is a hard human being. His loss to Billy Joe Saunders at middleweight was an epic fight, and many people, me included, thought Eubank had won. Now he has moved up to super middleweight and is able to fill out and feed the muscles he was starving in the lower weight division. He is tough and will make a war of things should, unexpectedly, DeGale take the fight that way. I expect Eubank to do well and come on strong if the fight goes into the deeper rounds. DeGale will do well to be thereabouts on the scorecards if the fight goes the whole distance.
The winner of Saturday?s fight will look warily towards Callum Smith. It won?t be a thought either man is going to relish, though the pay will be good and whoever it is will be perfectly placed to play the bad guy to Smith?s golden and wholesome hero. It?ll be a PPV cash bin. A fight so beautifully aligned in the psyches of the UK boxing fan?and some neutrals?that the money will roll right on in with hardly any crass PR stunts or gurning Promoters staring down the lens like crypto-monsters on a shitty SKY documentary. And the eventual loser will able to afford a nice car, even if they already have one. After all, isn?t that what pro boxing is all about?
