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Thread: Degale v Eubank Jnr

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  1. #1
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    Default Re: Degale v Eubank Jnr

    Lee Selby interview: A tale of triumph, tragedy and a second coming on the James DeGale vs Chris Eubank Jr undercard

    Few fighters have walked the line of tragedy and success with the same silent valour as Lee Selby. The slender Barry-born boxer, slightly tanned but largely unscuffed after weeks spent touring Los Angeles’ roughneck gyms, returns to the ring on Saturday nine months after losing his featherweight world title to Josh Warrington.

    Selby’s career, even in world title triumph, has been unforgiving. He speaks in the slightly tired manner of having already been here a thousand times. A career where he has reached the summit, but never quite seen the stars.

    The last time Selby was seen outside of the ring, taking to the scales before that gruelling bloodbath with Warrington, Selby cut a dangerous mess of skin, sinew and bone. Gaunt in the face with dark circles around his eyes, he had spent the last three weeks chewing on lettuce leaves trying to trick his stomach into believing he was full, as he wrung his 5’9” frame down to a skeletal 126lbs (57kg).

    “I wouldn’t eat,” Selby tells The Independent. “I couldn’t spar for three weeks out from a fight because of how few calories I was eating. I was just on the cross-trainer or running all day. I would be constantly thinking about my weight, it was mentally draining. Looking back, I can’t even imagine how I did it.”

    Selby was exhausted and outclassed in a punishing and ultimately one-sided contest with Warrington. After three years as a world champion, only pride and mettle kept him on his feet.

    Defeat in a sport like boxing rarely brings relief, but after toiling at the weight in search of that one big fight – and payday – Selby was finally released from the crippling cycle. It may not have been on his own terms, but in a game so crude and often unjust, it became cathartic. “It’s not frustrating,” he says. “To be honest, it felt like I could finally move on.”

    Selby has now moved up two weight divisions, to lightweight, giving himself an extra 9lbs of leeway. On Saturday, he takes on Omar Douglas, a dreadlocked puncher from Delaware, who has only lost twice in his career – both times at world title level – and is eyeing a coronation of his own. Selby could have had a softer touch on his return, but that’s not what he wanted. That’s not who he is.

    Still living just a short drive from the council estate in Barry in South Wales where he grew up, Selby is on the one hand so daring and borderless, but on the other inseparably rooted in his hometown. “It’s all I know,” he says. “It might be tough to an outsider, but not when you’re brought up like that. It’s just the life everybody is living around me.”

    Children wail in the kitchen along with the sound of the television set, just down the road is the rundown gym where his father catapulted him into boxing aged 8, and where he had his first amateur fight, 22 years ago, as a fearless 10-year-old boy.



    “It was hard from the beginning,” he says. “I was fighting on the small hall shows, no money, no slots on TV, going away as the opponent. It’s tough but you appreciate it more when you’ve done it the hard way.”

    Home has also been a place of heartache.

    When Selby’s older brother, Michael, suddenly passed away, it was the gym where he re-devoted himself to boxing after time spent papering over his emotions. When he became Wales’ 12th world champion, beating undefeated Russian Evgeny Gradovich in 2015, despite “nobody believing it was possible”, it was Michael to whom he dedicated the belt.

    Eighteen months ago, when preparing to make the third defence of that belt, Selby arrived at his hotel room in London on the Tuesday evening of fight week. At 3am in the morning, he was awoken by numerous phone calls from his younger brother, Andrew, back in Barry. Only in the morning did he find out his mother, Frankie, had been rushed to hospital and passed away during the night.

    Outside of his close circle, Selby didn’t tell anybody. Still starving himself to make the weight, he insisted he would fight on. “That’s just me I guess,” he says. “I just got on with it, that’s just the type of person I am.” That night, he produced one of the most impressive and assured performances of his career and drove back to Barry to see his family before sunrise.



    So, you see, when Lee Selby says defeat to Josh Warrington was “just another fight” he hasn’t watched back yet, it’s not an attempt at a front. And when he says he is returning to the ring to become Wales’ first two-weight world champion, not for the money, you believe him too. He is no average, nor ordinary fighter, but he is disarmingly honest.

    A career, and a life, where everything has been earned in the hardest possible way and where success has walked hand-in-hand with tragedy from sports hall to stadium. Sometimes, between training and raising his two daughters, he’ll walk long and high up into the fields and woods above the town to go shooting with his seven dogs to get away from it all. To get a taste of “an easy life”.

    “A nice, easy life,” he says heavily. That’s what he is most looking forward to. “I’ve done enough work in these gyms to last me a lifetime.”

    https://uk.sports.yahoo.com/news/lee...002219253.html
    Do not let success go to your head and do not let failure get to your heart.

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    Default Re: Degale v Eubank Jnr

    Never ceases to amaze me that after all this time, with countless precedents and unlimited knowledge at their disposal, there are still fighters doing things this way and putting their neck on the chopping block. That or they're lying through their back teeth. Whats equally as amazing is the teams these people have endorsing this kind of behaviour.

    The Selby's are a weird pair. Neither of them seem to like boxing that much, Lee just wants to tick over quietly with his kids and dogs, Andrew with not even a dozen pro fights under his belt talks openly about not liking boxing.
    When God said to the both of us "Which one of you wants to be Sugar Ray?" I guess I didnt raise my hand fast enough

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    Default Re: Degale v Eubank Jnr

    Degale looked long faced after he lost the title to Caleb Truax.
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    Default Re: Degale v Eubank Jnr

    I put some money on Eubank by KO between rounds 1-3, banking on DeGale being shot
    They live, We sleep

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    Default Re: Degale v Eubank Jnr

    Quote Originally Posted by Alpha View Post
    I put some money on Eubank by KO between rounds 1-3, banking on DeGale being shot
    Fuck me! for Eubank to KO him in the first 3 rounds , DeGale will have to be Shot in both arms and legs. It'll take Eubank the customary 6 or 8 rounds to suss out whether DeGale is a southpaw or an orthodox!
    Former Undisputed 4 belt Prediction champion. Still P4P and People’s Champion.

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    Default Re: Degale v Eubank Jnr

    Are we all forgetting that Degale is finished and looked terrible in his last 2 fights against poor opposition.
    If he sits on the ropes and his bad habits surface Eubank will stop him easily.
    If Degale can pull off one last performance at only 80% he'll put a clinic on Jnr.

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    Default Re: Degale v Eubank Jnr

    Quote Originally Posted by smashup View Post
    Are we all forgetting that Degale is finished and looked terrible in his last 2 fights against poor opposition.
    If he sits on the ropes and his bad habits surface Eubank will stop him easily.
    If Degale can pull off one last performance at only 80% he'll put a clinic on Jnr.
    I don't think we are. and like you said yourself, if he is 80% of what he can be, he'll win easily. I don't discount Eubank , not because he is any good, but just because he is fit. Even this new coach Vasquez said, in training , they did stuff that was new to Eubank , that most guys would be doing at 8 years old!! that is a lot of ring IQ to catch up.
    I just think (and hope) , that DeGale has enough self pride that there is no way he wouldn't come in at his best and risk losing to Eubank. I could be wrong.
    But I do believe that everyone to a man believes That the only way Eubank wins is if DeGale is totally shot to pieces.
    Former Undisputed 4 belt Prediction champion. Still P4P and People’s Champion.

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    Default Re: Degale v Eubank Jnr

    Quote Originally Posted by Primo Carnera View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Alpha View Post
    I put some money on Eubank by KO between rounds 1-3, banking on DeGale being shot
    Fuck me! for Eubank to KO him in the first 3 rounds , DeGale will have to be Shot in both arms and legs. It'll take Eubank the customary 6 or 8 rounds to suss out whether DeGale is a southpaw or an orthodox!
    The odds were awesome, I couldn't pass it up.

    My thinking tho, is Eubank takes DeGale out late.
    They live, We sleep

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    Default Re: Degale v Eubank Jnr

    Just seen the pictures on the scales of Stiverne and Joyce. Fucking hell, if this is Stiverne taking it seriously, fuck knows what he’d look like if he was going through the motions.
    I’m far from sold on Joyce, but Stiverne is getting KO’d early again.
    Former Undisputed 4 belt Prediction champion. Still P4P and People’s Champion.

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    Default Re: Degale v Eubank Jnr

    Mental press conference - Paulie/Old man Eubank/parliamentary procedure/George Groves booted from the broadcast/George Groves reinstated/substances/vodka/Africa/Rawanda cleanest place on earth/Elvis Presley/FBI and Sergeant Eubank is a global police officer.
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    Default Re: Degale v Eubank Jnr

    Is it just me or is degale sounding even more punch drunk than usual just lately?

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    Default Re: Degale v Eubank Jnr

    I'm quite looking forward to it now, I think Jr will win which will piss me off big time.

    Paulie was the only cunt who wanted to speak sense during the presser

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    Default Re: Degale v Eubank Jnr

    Quote Originally Posted by Memphis View Post
    Never ceases to amaze me that after all this time, with countless precedents and unlimited knowledge at their disposal, there are still fighters doing things this way and putting their neck on the chopping block. That or they're lying through their back teeth. Whats equally as amazing is the teams these people have endorsing this kind of behaviour.

    The Selby's are a weird pair. Neither of them seem to like boxing that much, Lee just wants to tick over quietly with his kids and dogs, Andrew with not even a dozen pro fights under his belt talks openly about not liking boxing.
    I’m in the same boat. I deal with lower level fighters(MMA and boxing) every day and you try to tell them things that will help them but “this works, I’ve done it for years” umm, just because something works doesn’t make it ideal.

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    Default Re: Degale v Eubank Jnr

    DeGale retirement messages:


    George Groves: "You reached the highest level. Congratulations."

    Anthony Joshua: "Congrats champion. You had a great career!"

    Badou Jack: "You should be very proud."


    Carl Froch: "I would have backed him up & absolutely smashed him to bits."

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    Default Re: Degale v Eubank Jnr

    Quote Originally Posted by Freedom View Post
    DeGale retirement messages:


    George Groves: "You reached the highest level. Congratulations."

    Anthony Joshua: "Congrats champion. You had a great career!"

    Badou Jack: "You should be very proud."


    Carl Froch: "I would have backed him up & absolutely smashed him to bits."
    I genuinely thought that you had made Up the bottom line as a punchline to a joke! Then I looked on Boxing scene and saw it!
    Froch is priceless. He retired because he didn’t want GGG, DeGale or Ward and it was Chavez Jr. In Vegas or nothing! Yeah, some sort of warrior he is!
    Former Undisputed 4 belt Prediction champion. Still P4P and People’s Champion.

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