C.EUBANK describing his career in great detail ! Just came across this

I started as a light handed southpaw around clubs in the Bronx. This was because my gymnasium idol, Dennis Cruz, was a southpaw and I made the decision to convert so as it would be easier to copy his moves and punches. My trainer at the time however, Andy Martinez, wouldn't allow me to bob and weave or throw hooks and uppecuts because he felt I should take advantage of the height and reach advantages I more often than not had. This was a constant disagreement.

I went into the prestigious Spanish Golden Gloves Championships in 1984 as an orthodox 156-pounder with an 8-2 record. I won the championships and also reached the semi finals of the Golden Gloves at the Madison Square Gardens, losing a narrow decision in a fight that would shape the rest of my career.

We got into a clinch on the ropes towards the end of the third round and I bit my opponent on the shoulder, this was because I was getting beaten and knew I couldn't win. I was so ashamed I actually bit him and still am to this day. I was disgusted with myself for my actions. It taught me to not react like a child, but rather take your beating like a man so as you can live with yourself and leave the ring with your head held high.

That fight in the semi finals of the Golden Gloves taught me integrity, which is the centrefold of my entire life. Be true to yourself.

I won my first five professional fights in Atlantic City over four rounds on points. I'd switched to the paid ranks because I needed to pay off telephone bills and gambling debts.

My bout with James Canty I dedicated to one Ray Rivera, who was Golden Gloves champion and trained with me in the Bronx, only to get involved with drugs and end up being shot dead when failing to pay his dealer. He was my only true friend in New York and I use this story when talking to youngsters about staying away from substances.

Canty had narrowly missed the 1980 US Olympic team, and I'd actually turned down a television contract from SportsChannel in the United States a year earlier to concentrate on my studies. The fight was talked of as comebacking prospects.

My mentor in New York, Adonis Torres, sadly died in 1987 and I made Brighton my adopted home in January 1988. In the 18 months prior to making Brighton my home, I had worked painstakingly hard, menally and physically, to evolve into being a complete boxer, fighter, puncher and gladiator with a style all of my own.

I realised that a pugilists success is usually determined by how well he can absorb a blow, so worked hard towards a PhD in absorbance. I also studied intensely Yuan Shibing's translated Art of War until it became imprinted in my brain, and used various techniques from Shaolin tradition to enhance, edit and add to the textbook boxing manual skills I had mastered through thousands of hours of repetition.

My drive to succeed in boxing came through my drive to become an accepted individual. My brothers always treated me like horse manure growing up and they all boxed. Basically, that's the only reason I boxed.

One day I read the 1692 poem, 'Desiderata', where one of the stanza goes like this: 'If you compare yourself with others you may become vain and bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.' That learned me to place objective in front of subjective.

Subjective is negative. Objective is positive. It's really that simple.

If it wasn't for me reading this particular poem (believed by some to have been found in a churchyard in Baltimore - author unknown), I would never have made it in boxing. I'd have wanted to be the best of the best in my chosen profession, to do things more exceptionally brilliant than everybody else in the trade. That would have burned me out, both mentally and physically.

However, I gave myself an objective and that was to win. If certain fighters needed to be avoided, they would be avoided. I would win until I got my hands on a world title belt, which I'd have needed to honour the thousands upon thousands of hours in the gymnasium and social isolation by making money off. My only concern was to win boxing matches.

The score is that if you lose a boxing match you're on half of what you were before and if you lose two boxing matches there's a dead end. I couldn't afford that.

I always say I went through a trial-and-error period to make the grade, then I beat Benn and made the grade. My first 19 fights in the United Kingdom were basically still part of that trial-and-error period. For example, in my breakthrough fight against Anthony Logan, you'll notice that I still looked too novicey - my arms were positioned poorly, whereas against Benn they were much more tightly tucked in and correct.

As far as I'm concerned, I proved myself the ultimate pugilist for what I achieved that night against Benn in Birmingham. To beat the hardest pound-for-pound puncher in the world with your hands down, to stand up to, look into the eyes of, confidence trick and conquer the most terrifying person you've ever come across, with your fans out-numbered in that arena by around 400-to-1 (I had a crowd of about 30 or so up from Brighton) and 95+% of spectators both expecting your head to end up in the fourth row and wanting your head to end up in the fourth row, I guess it speaks for itself. I was intimidated by Benn, the crowd, everything, just didn't let it show.

The morning after I knocked out Dos Santos in 20 seconds, I went into training for the Benn fight. I made the decision that Benn was the most vicious man I'd ever seen, so for 1) everything in training would have to be unorthodox and for 2) I'd also need to change my style completely. For 1) is because Benn was more used to opponents covering up with perfect boxing manual guard than anybody. For 2) is because I would need to throw him off to tame that viciousness.

Once these thoughts functioned in my mind, there was no going back. I had to go through with them. It was about having complete conviction because Benn was so vicious.

If you watch my first 19 fights in the United Kingdom, my punches are poetically stylish to a severe degree, what I like to call fanciful work. I don't mind admitting that I watch these fights for hours on end, all the time, like a Narcissist. I also fought out of a crouch, a pouncing fighter with pretty, light punching flurries up close or perfect single shots executed with beautiful leverage. That was my game. I also moved and danced a lot and liked to triple and quadruple the jab.

In training for Benn though I focussed entirely on effectiveness over looking pretty because there would be nothing pretty in a fight against a dog with a rag, and staying upright and moving more, leading with right hands, right uppercuts or left hooks. You can't crouch in front of Nigel Benn because he's too vicious. My good friend John Regan came up with a swungball device to help my reflexes - that's how much I respected Benn's punch, going out of my way to use custom made machinery.

Usually I would use the first minute of a fight to find all four corners of the ring and wouldn't throw a meaningful punch, whereas against Benn I beat him to the centre of the ring, had my back turned towards him and tried to take him out with the very first punch of the fight.

In training and sparring, rather than light punching flurries from up close I would use hard punching flurries from long. So everything was done opposing, that was the mindset throughout training for Benn because he was so vicious.

If not for my PhD in absorbance, combined with the granite constitution I always felt I had, I'd have been knocked out by Benn many times over that night. If not for my tactics I'd have been knocked out by Benn many, many times over.

I said to myself, though, that for every knockout blow he landed I'd try to throw four or five punches back in his face. Once I said that to myself I had to go through with that convinction and did.

The first three rounds were so intensely ferocious that, yes, the thoughts running through my head towards the end of the third round were that I needed to quit to get out of this situation. Television sanitised immensely just how ferocious those first three rounds were for me. In the ring that night against that man, his pace was just looney, right from the offset. I'd never experienced anything quite like it before and it was a matter of integrity to block these thoughts.

In the fourth round, we got into a clinch on the ropes and he bounced me off and banged me with this right uppercut that left a laceration in my tongue almost an inch long, because my tongue had slotted in between my gumshield and bottom teeth at that precise moment. I was swallowing pints of blood for the rest of the fight but had to hide it from both the referee and my corner because I didn't want the fight stopped, even though I knew full well that the blood could curdle and cause me to choke to death at any time. It was a matter of integrity.

I was also winded two or three times throughout the fight, which leaves you exhausted anyway.

In the fifth and sixth rounds his pace had been beginning to stutter slightly, which had allowed me draw a few breathes atleast.

I woke up in a hospital bed the next morning and the stitched tongue was the least of my worries, not only were my ribs bruised but my hips, back and even abdominals all had bruises on too. It was agony. But atleast it took the pain away from my skull and semi-dislocated jaw. Then my urine came out red! "I couldn't have been closer to death in there," I mumbled when my bodyguard, supervisor and training assistant since January 1988, Ronnie Davies, came to visit me.

I was in agony in the fight, it took a titanic effort to not show pain during that fight, particularly towards the end.

That was the first of 20 world title fights in a row, ofcourse, and 19 successful world title fights in a row, both were all time records in world boxing history.

The philosophy I used after I beat Benn was "If it's not broke, don't fix it," and so I trained with and used the same style I used for Benn forever more, with the only exception being when I travelled to Berlin to square off with Graciano Rocchigiani in his backyard. That was apart from an unnecessary thing which was distributing my weight 90% to the front foot, which I did for Benn because I usually distributed my weight 90% to the rear foot which allowed me to skip out of range quicker, yet I opposed this for Benn because I felt I needed to for complete mindset of opposement. Also, I started using my jab again for the Watson fights, (I forced myself to not once use my jab as a range finder for Benn or even double it one single time).

Anyway, back to Berlin. The hostility towards this aristocrat of African descent and old school English tones was rather unpleasant, so what one did was closed the doors of one's training in the two weeks one was over in Berlin before the fight and soaked up that hostility from the outside, curdled it inside one's system and released it as poetic beauty onto all of the bags, pads and guards. When I got into the ring to face Rocchigiani that night in Berlin, the more hostile his German people were towards me the prettier I released my punches and the more poetically stylish I was with my moves.

The least offensive of the Berlin crowd's taunts in the preliminaries were chants of 'Kill the black man'. Fearing a riot and abandonment of the fight, Barry Hearn, my manager and promoter of nearly five years at the time, whose insurance money only kicked in once the boxers actually entered the ring, was astounded to see me strolling round and round the apron outside the ring. "What the hell are you doing?" he hissed. "I'm simply soaking up the hate, Barry, it's wonderful," I said, before stepping into the ring and demolishing my opponent.

Those are my two favourite fights. But my greatest fight and by far the most special fight of my career was Watson 2.

Watson 2 was an extremely important fight. I felt the newspapers had won at that point, in making me out to be this schmuck of a human being to the point where I couldn't walk down the street without a shower of spit. Yet I knew they literally couldn't be further from the truth and the fact that was the truth was shattering me and would have literally shattered me had I lost.

If I lost I lost my standing, my platform to make my voice heard. An unbeaten record empowers and that seemed my only hope at that point. Then there was the Watson aspect, who had no point of view and in my opinion hated me even more so than Nigel Benn did because I could feel an intense, bitter envy from Watson whereas Benn seemed to pity me.

With Watson it would be last chance saloon for him, his third world title chance and at the time I thought this was an unpolished man in regards to the fact that he admitted boxing was his life, that he felt at home in the gym and loved the sport and wanted to be world champion more than anything on earth, yet said becoming world champion was secondary to getting me out of the system. When he said that, I knew I had a tough fight on my hands against a man who would not hold back, but release all that envious hatred and bitterness onto me. I felt it could even be nearly as tough as Benn in Birmingham. But I was extremely confident of winning.

In boxing, you mostly see men slipping and countering and throwing combinations and having a boxing match. Very rarely will you see two men fighting for a supremacy and willing to give their all, their lives. As in their health. Never stopping. How do I get across to you that this was a fight I knew I couldn't win?

I came back to my corner after the first round and Ronnie Davies said: 'Don't worry kid, if he keeps up this pace you'll stop him in five to six rounds'. It was the common sense point of view. He couldn't keep up that maniacal pace.

In the sixth round, he had kept it up. I am thinking: 'No, I am going to lose this fight. But you are not knocking me out. I am walking out, a proud man. I wanted to be able to look at myself afterwards'.

When you know you can't win, though, you quit. Although you may stay there in body, you quit. The adrenalin that makes you punch harder, move quicker, feel no pain, is no longer being produced. You've given up, it's a mental thing. So then the pain, the beating I took, was bitter. Bitter. It was scary knowing that there was a right hook coming and it was going to hit me in the same place as the one before. And it was unbearable. Unbearable. I cannot find the words to express to you how horrible this predicament was. And - this is the thing - there was no…way…out. I had to stay there and take it.

My heart had began to break after only three rounds because I'd hit him with everything and the kitchen sink and he was still coming at me just as strong, and his strength didn't feel natural. After the six rounds I genuinely thought his strength was superhuman. As a warrior who gladiates you'll instictively know when you feel superhuman strength and, I swear to the Lord, Michael's strength was not normal that night.

So the situation is I'm being hit by a bitter man with superhuman strength who is a super middleweight keeping up the pace of a lightweight and showing no signs of slowing down. By the ninth round, I was being beaten hideously - he was holding me up, whacking me with the malice towards me he had back then but then purposefully not finishing.

It's the 11th round and I still know I can't win, I'm just about conscious. When he hit me with this overhand right it concussed me and then he hit me with another overhand right on the back of the neck which knocked me forwards. I slumped to one knee. My nervous system shorted. But when my knee hit the canvas, it was almost as though I was earthed. I was completely recovered. I am down for one or two seconds, because the code of the warrior is to rise immediately. I'd been knocked senseless but I didn't take the count, I didn't take the rest.

I got up, I looked around, I spat. I had a flash of awareness. The crowd were not jumping up and down for my demise. They were hovering. They were up in the air in joy looking at this villain of villains being silenced. I didn't pretend I wasn't hurt. I called my opponent on. You can see me on the film say: 'Come on!' and with that, I have taken one step with my right foot, with my left foot I have gone down into a position to throw an uppercut right up through the middle of his guard. I hit him with a shot - and you have to remember at this point I have nothing left, I shouldn't be in the fight. You can hear it in the commentary. The ITV audience of 16 million are saying why are you getting up.

The shot I hit him with was one uppercut. Everything that I had was in that shot. I had nothing left. This now goes into the realm of animal instinct. This power can only be acquired if you are truly honest. You hear about mothers lifting up cars to rescue babies. You somehow tap into a strength beyond possibility. What happened couldn't happen. If you watched this fight for 10 rounds, you'd bet everything you had there was only one winner. The term divine intervention comes into mind, animal instinct, phenomena. This is the most special fight I've ever seen!

Watson 2 was tougher than Benn in Birmingham. That was the battering of my life. I had to be wheeled out of the arena in a wheelchair and couldn't speak. I was in bed for three or four weeks. Michael's condition ofcourse was much, much worse and the mental anguish I suffered was indescribable.

Let me tell you something. Whenever I had been told about the Samurai of the past from an older acquaintance of mine in my days in New York it was as if I already had the knowledge, but was just being reminded. It was weird. After Watson 2 I realised this was because I had the warrior within, which can only be awoken in the most extreme circumstances.

For the rest of my infamous reign, I was criticised just as heavily as I'd ever been.

They claimed my quality of opposition was dire. Yet Sugarboy Malinga would go on to beat Nigel Benn for the WBC title, Tony Thornton had one of the hardest pound-for-pound right hands of the previous 10 years when his right hand wasn't fractured, Lindell Holmes was a former IBF World Champion who only lost his world title via a bodyshot and was only stopped by Herol Graham on cuts (he had fast hands and knew all the tricks of the trade), and Henry Wharton was another of the world's hardest pound-for-pound punchers with his power blasting him to the WBC mandatory contender slot, knocking his previous opponent to me out cold in 30 seconds and knocking out my mandatory contender at the time of the fight I had with Wharton, Ray Close, in 30 seconds in the amateurs.

They claimed I couldn't knockout my opponents or cause stoppages. Yet they hadn't nearly a killed a man in the ring. (For a man who is accused of not stopping opponents, it is worth noting that 23 of my 45 victims did not hear the final bell.)

And they claimed, ofcourse, that many of my opponents had done enough to win. Now let me tell you, in my honest opinion you'd need to be intoxicated to suggest I didn't deserve any of the decisions I received in my favour with the exception of the Dan Schommer one in Sun City. Unless, ofcourse, envy clouded your judgement.

If I was judging the Schommer fight, I'd have scored it for Schommer. But then again, if I was scoring both the semi final and final of my fights at the Spanish Golden Gloves I'd have scored the fight in the favour of my opponent. In those three fights, the semi final of the Spanish Golden Gloves, the final of the Spanish Golden Gloves and the Schommer fight, my opponents had the measure of me and were picking me off, yet the judges appreciated my aggression on those occasions.

The three most important fights of my career were my last three fights. The reason I came out of retirement was because I realised I hadn't completed my course. I worked out there were stages that would make the perfect career and that I had gone through each stage perfectly bar the last. Those stages are as follows: learn the art, apply the philosophy, acquire the financial security, achieve the fame, earn the respect.

The forefront of the publics mind about me was strutting, winning and posing. I wanted to leave them with the forefront of their minds about me being battered. The Calzaghe fight and the Thompson fights weren't as tough as Benn in Birmingham or Watson 2, although the public perceived they were. Both hit hard, but not near as hard as Benn in Birmingham. Calzaghe didn't hit as consistently heavy as Watson did in Watson 2 and Thompson didn't hit as consistently hard as Watson did in Watson 2.

With some of the shots Calzaghe hit me with, though, it was the only time I could physically feel my brain rattling around inside my skull. But I didn't feel near as battered afterwards as I did after Benn in Birmingham or Watson 2. Against Thompson all I had was a black eye. But they were still beatings the likes of which I hadn't gone through for years and years, and for the fact I could have easily put my feet up in front of the fire with pipe and slippers and brandy in hand and yet came back to take my beatings instead, the British public will always give me their lasting respect.

this is pretty awesome

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What a man - a true warrior if ever there was one - tough as nails! - and honest with it!