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I worked off the front foot in the amateurs, skilful at closing the gap and skilful at cutting the ring, (and) skilful at catching punches and countering.
It was a different time constraint, regulated at three three-minute rounds.
If I beat my opponent to the jab and got my jab working, the right hand followed and a left hook could follow that. If a left hook was ducked I'd bring them back up with a right uppercut and go again. That was about as far as my offence went.
I'd throw a lot of rights and jabs, and I would side-step rather than bob-and-weave.
The constraint of time was differential and you've not yet become a master in the field because you're just an amateur. You don't have as many gym hours behind you, you understand?
You're not a professional, (or) an artist, a teacher, tradesman or champion of the world. You're just an amateur. You're not making a living or riding your life.
It's not a black-or-white, hot-or-cold career because you're just an amateur and there is a different time constraint. You 'go for it' because you've not got a lot to gain, let alone lose.
I lost seven in 26 fights at top level in New York, including my first and last; a 30-second stoppage in my first and a Golden Gloves defeat in my last in March 1985.
The fights I lost were the fights (where) I couldn't get my jab working, mostly taken at short notice around clubs in the Bronx.
My amateur career lasted about a year and started about a year after I first started boxing. You see, I would train a minimum of four hours a day, seven days a week; with no sin or social life.
In the gym it was never chit-chat or play, just an intense, burning focus to get these skills and gain a token of respect from Adonis Torres and Maximo Pierret. Did that require discipline because of the hereditary craic my father passed (on)? Yes.
I did have the Olympic Games in mind because I was determined to show everyone who wrote me off in my youth in England that I was proper.
Winning the Spanish Golden Gloves - which were held every two years in Felt Forum - when I had just turned 18, was a great triumph for me. I was kept abit of a secret going in.
When I showed my brothers the trophy they accepted me for the first time in my life. They were boxers themselves.
Why I turned professional? I needed some money. My brothers would say I was just an amateur, a kid. I showed them my professional license and the tapes of my pro wins, and they'd say I was just a novice.
Then they said I'd lose against Winston Burnett, (and) lose against Michael Justin. They dreamed of being world champion. That was my drive. Get my brothers' acceptance. They never accepted me.
See my post-fight interview on ITV after beating (Nigel) Benn, and I come back to say, 'Peter Eubank, I did it man, you said I couldn't do it. I did it.' All I've ever wanted is acceptance.
Jim Watt says during the Ron Essett fight in Portugal, 'He can't double the left hook and then throw the right hand.' So in the opening 30 seconds of my following fight, I put a sneak right hand and flurry behind a triple left hook.
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It was always boxing simultaneous to studying. I turned professional to pay a school telephone bill I ran up. I stopped taking fights to concentrate on my exams, graduating in the summer of 1986.
I studied at business college for six months from September 1986 and qualified myself as a typist, but failed to qualify myself as a secretary. In those six months I'd also been studying martial arts.
My training partner in boxing was Ray Rivera, the Golden Gloves champion. My free-of-charge teacher in the martial arts was a fellow called Walter Johnson, a black belt in internal and external, whom I called 'Dr'.
When Ray pulled out of making his professional debut in March 1987, I agreed to step in. That disrupted my study. It was at that point I decided to put all my eggs into one basket or risk being mediocre at both, as in boxing or studies.
It was also at that point I decided to extract from 'Dr's' martial arts and implant to my boxing style. I distributed 97-98% of my weight on the back foot, based on escape. I modified stances, moves and foot moves.
But most of my foot movement was my own flavour, and I'd attack from angles. I was performing splits and backbends - sweating profusely - before I even taped my hands.
I was a scientist still mastering every punch in the book, (and) learning how to bob correctly, (and) learning how to weave correctly.
A scientist, I tell you. A 20-year-old scientist.
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Basically I put all my eggs into the boxing basket. I'd always lived my life as black-or-white, hot-or-cold, and boxing was a life-and-death game with potential earnings outstripping an office job by, potentially, millions.
That was, of course, providing you obtained the title of world champion.
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By learning how to focus and use all your senses, not just sight, a warrior can better equip and defend themselves.
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There is a quotation from the warrior's code which says, 'the warrior is a creature of irony, for his genuine task is to ensure peace'.
That is how I have always felt. I haven't had an illegal fight since I was 16-years-old. Fighting in the street and fighting in a ring are leagues apart, not just miles apart.
People who can't fight do, people who can fight, don't.
When you're speaking to conscientious children who are deciphering the message you're projecting, then they leave with a sense of inspiration and a good sense.
What I am telling them is that people who are strong are not supposed to use that against others, they are supposed to use it to protect. Weak people are the ones who bully, the strong protect.
I don't see why everybody doesn't understand this because to me it's just common sense.
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I remember one year I removed a truck delivering beer which was illegally parked in the street.
Parents, and I was one of them, were trying to take their children to school.
I asked them to move it to the left or the right of the road so people could get by, but they said they would be another 10 minutes.
I said, 'if you don't move it now, I'll move it' and I got up and drove this 50ft truck and parked it 100 metres down the road.
I went to court and lost six points off my licence, but I didn't mind that because it was the right thing to do. It was simply a question of standing up for right.
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It was a sabbatical, not because I was unhappy with the media attention, it is always a great privilege to have that, but I wanted to relax and keep myself well-behaved.
So I went away to Dubai to set up some businesses there. But now I've done that and I've come back and I feel it's time to do something again in terms of television and public appearances.
I have a few things in the pipeline. But I can chameleonise myself to whatever situation. Whether it's poetry, jokes - not that I'm a good joke teller, but I can - being a community leader, protecting the bullied or, obviously, being a father.
I have many different faces, the only real thing that stays steadfast is my integrity. That is staunch, my foundation.
Unfortunately that isn't always presented. People see the monocle and the cane, but that's just fashion. It's just like me choosing to wear a suit one day, and jeans another. It's not that I think I'm something, it's just fashion.
But maybe, because of them, I haven't always been taken seriously. Certainly I don't think people took me seriously with poetry before now.
But actually I have committed a great deal to memory, written by other authors.
I don't write my own, I have only ever written one poem myself, although I was very impressed with it.
When people talk of poets, though, I always have an input. But that is mostly true of any subject.
