Chris Eubank was a world champion who deliberately went out to provoke hatred among fight fans. Flamboyant, egotistical, eccentric, he strutted the stage with defiance that was carefully choreographed at a series of meetings. Barry Hearn his promoter, reveals that a shrewd Eubank modelled himself on that typically British actor Terry Thomas. Hearn said ” All his mannerisms, his clipped english vocabulary, the way he dresses and conducted himself was gleaned from watching Terry Thomas films. Chris was a showman-he sold tickets alright, even if a lot of fans only wanted to see his head knocked off. I remember him being engrossed in a book one day he told me ‘ i like reading you know, its Dickens.Did you know that he’s dead? I didn’t even know he was ill.’ That was a Terry Thomas line.” Hearn went on ” Chris took the dandy bit to its ultimate,wearing a monocle and jodhpurs. We worked together for years on nothing more than trust. At the end when Eubank wanted to go his own way i said fine, we’d made a lot of money together and had fun. I wasn’t going to bad-mouth him and we shook hands, but i was sad to see him finish with two defeats Carl Thompson and another to Joe Calzaghe.”

Hearn’s office is a museum of memories and prominent on his wall is the Eubank v Benn poster.

“That first one was a great fight” enthused Hearn “I gave Nigel £400,000 and paid Chris £100,000. Benn and his people thought they couldn’t lose, but he did. I sat there as the bell went and told them ‘you’ve just done your money boys’. Don King wanted to come aboard for the rematch. I’d agreed to pay £1 million each to the fighters, but the overseas TV money was only £25,000. King offered me a £2 million overseas deal for half the action. It wasn’t a difficult decision. He took out options on both fighters-win or lose and Benn and Eubank would both fight for him next. They drew ! King called a news conference where he would announce that he was taking over British boxing-until i turned up and reminded him the contract said nothing about a draw and all deals were off. You can imagine the look on his face-his hair was standing up more than usual. I don’t get medals or belts for what i do, so you take your victories in that fashion. It was a good win.” Another talented fighter Hearn promoted was Prince Naseem Hamed.” He was more of a gifted fighter than Eubank,” maintained Hearn. ” He was a puncher and had style. The only trouble was eventually Naz believed his own publicity that he was invincible in the ring. I warned him about Marco Antonio Barrera but he wouldn’t have it and he lost. “