Reflections – Eubank Jr and Matchroom’s spat is in a sorry state
As the last two weeks have rolled on… I wondered if we might hear it… the word ‘sorry’…
Even if only to avoid litigation.
It has not appeared.
Cheeky chappy, disruptive presence, Svengali, Machiavelli, schemer, plotter, genius… No matter what you think of Chris Eubank Jr., his latest outburst is something that somewhere, somebody is going to suggest he’s one of those.
Eddie Hearn has already said publicly that he feels that he’s a plotter and that the latest outburst is probably designed to gather attention.
The attention it’s going to get, potentially, is that Eddie Hearn is going to sue him, and that apology will come soon enough.
Chris Eubank Jr. has form for this. When he fought on an undercard of Dimitri Bivol’s, in Saudi Arabia, he made derogatory comments about Frank Warren and was forced to say sorry, but Warren still sued him. The court case never came to fruition because it was settled “amicably” prior to getting beyond the steps of the court.
Will that happen again?
Possibly, but let’s for a moment consider some of the accusations.
Suggestions over the rehydration clause in a contract that he was forced to sign as an ultimatum. The throwback is that he should take more responsibility for himself and have not signed.
Then there was that weigh-in. He lost half a million pounds over it, but was he late or was he delayed deliberately? That should be easy to sort. Matchroom have countered that he was just late for the weigh-in.
Then came the accusation that he was deliberately delayed getting into the venue so that his preparations were disrupted. Again, all you need is evidence…
The most serious is the charge that his ambulance was delayed for 20 minutes by security, forcing his own security to leap over a barrier and press a button allowing the ambulance to escape.
That led Eubank into talking about the British Boxing Board of Control and Robert Smith and further allegations were made particularly towards the BBBofC and DAZN which included bias. That bias for Robert Smith was to do with the weigh-in, gloves and Eubank Jr. and apparently, he happens to be a “scumbag”.
For Matchroom, the suggestions that there was horsehair in the gloves, delays getting in and delays leaving the venue which led to Jr. losing a toenail and being in hospital for three days are pretty serious.
Serious in essence because boxing often depends upon its own reputation. This damages the reputation of the sport. It has already been challenged by people who want to make money out the sport but might not have the essence of the sport in their minds when counting their cash.
Whilst people think that Jr. has played a blinder, in the midst of it all I was struck by Connor Benn. He has had his own problems with the BBBofC, and it was interesting to see Benn leap to the defence of them. I say leap, he maybe meandered over and had the opportunity to say something positive in comparison to the rant that Jr was on, but it was measured, calm and reasonable. Not words that were bandied about when he was banned.
Meanwhile Eddie Hearn and Matchroom are likely to follow through on his threat and take some form of legal action. It’d be interesting to see the details and how they are dealt with between the parties. That level of transparency would be interesting for all boxing fans because it’s one thing that we are denied often. You would think with this amount of mistrust that all parties would walk away because there’s no way on this earth you should trust each other with the safety and security of the principals.
Senior might have been given a new opportunity to suggest that “they” or “you lot” are trying to kill his son. It is a very strong argument given that he has already lost one son and both him and Eubank Jr. have been in the ring where two tragic consequences of boxing have happened: Nick Blackwell Jr. and Michael Watson.
Boxing purists will spend a lot of time wondering why it is that Eubank Jr. is dissing the sport that has provided him with all the opportunities he has had. Purists will argue till the cows come home of just exactly how terrible and appalling it is once again to see Eubank Jr. trash the sport.
Way back at the beginning of Jr.’s career, Sr. made a lot of sense talking about how he wanted to change boxing and allow boxers to have greater control and power over their contracts and particularly control over their image rights.
That seems to have been lost in this miasma of indulgence.
And a lot of it is indulgent.
If you’re going to go into a fight, then you need to go in with your eyes open. Once you’ve signed on the dotted line, perhaps it’s too late to complain. If things were so bad, then for me, I would have gone to the British Boxing Board of Control and asked them to investigate rather than making it public.
But boxing does not have a very good history in settling things A, quickly or B, effectively.
Perhaps that’s why Eubank Jr. decided to go public. Or maybe, he wants his licence pulled, the fight called off and the blame on somebody else’s shoulders?
No matter what, boxing once again is spending its time looking at the headlines that are to do with claim and counterclaim in the shadow of fights for our age including Inouye, Crawford, Crocker and also amidst the tragic loss of Ricky Hatton.
Once more boxing’s ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of celebrating huge, massive, great victories is upon us.
But so far, sorry has not been uttered and is the only word not coming from a Eubank mouth…
More articles by Donald C Stewart