Eubanks pullout from the Cardiff card
21.09.16

Eubanks pullout from the Cardiff card

By Frank Warren

Chris Eubank

When I was first negotiating a promotional deal with Chris Eubank snr to sign his son, he made a weird tasteless analogy of his son as a boxer, saying that he was “The best pussy I’d ever have”.

Over the past year or two I have been guilty of singling out Chris Eubank snr as a fool and a fraud. I now concede I was wrong to label him in isolation as the characteristic obviously runs in the family.

Myself and others have long afforded Chris Eubank jnr the benefit of the doubt, believing him to be a victim of the madness of his old man. Now I’m not so sure, in fact I’m certain they are on the same wavelength and in cahoots over every illogical decision. They are made for each other.

The bottom line with the odd couple is they are full of bullshit. After I won the purse bid for Eubank jnr to defend his British title against Tommy Langford on October 22, he signed the contract and four dates for a pre-fight press conference were subsequently put to him and ignored.

It got to the point where we had to make a complaint to the British Boxing Board of Control, who made contact with them and we were informed on Friday that he would attend a press conference to promote the fight this Wednesday.

Then, low and behold, we receive a doctor’s note revealing he is suffering from tennis elbow! It had to be something where a load of balls are involved.

This is the fella who posted the tasteless tweet following Kell Brook being spared further punishment by his team against Gennady Golovkin, saying his corner doesn’t own towels and his team are under instruction to let him take his beating like a man.

Now he is crying off with tennis elbow, which is probably the same condition that chronically hampers him when it comes to signing up for big fights.

Then we all get the ridiculous statement – no prizes for guessing who dictated this one! – making the astonishing claim that no fighter in history has had such a vast chasm of fighting prowess between himself and contenders for the British title.

Who is he trying to kid? They must be living in a fantasy world if they expect us to believe this is all to protect the wellbeing of Langford.

Tommy Langford

At the conclusion of our promotional agreement, I was asked by the old man to become an advisor to Eubank jnr and I declined because it is such a mind-numbing experience doing business with them. Adam Booth ultimately took on the role for a spell and said at the time the one fight they didn’t want to entertain – and we know because we tried to make it – was against a certain Tommy Langford.

It is not about being too good for British level, the Eubanks simply couldn’t stomach the prospect of coming up short on the domestic title front.

The fact of the matter is, Langford is ranked at No.2 by the WBO – higher than Eubank Jnr – and had he successfully defended his title he would have become mandatory for a shot at Billy Joe Saunders.

That is another fight they continue to claim they want, but it is one they have twice put the mockers on by refusing to put pen to paper.

Following his defeat to Saunders in November 2014, I got Eubank jnr a shot at the WBA interim title, which he won by defeating Dmitriy Chudinov and put himself in position for a mandatory challenge to the regular world champion Danny Jacobs.

I was told he didn’t want that fight as he wanted a rematch with Saunders but, because it was not a unification fight, the WBO insisted he must relinquish his interim title for the fight to go ahead.

He wouldn’t oblige and held on to the interim title before vacating it to challenge for the British title. The reason being he wanted to win the Lonsdale Belt outright because it meant so much to him, the belt by the way he publicly declared he would give to Nick Blackwell in the aftermath of their tragic fight.

Eubank snr made so much of their pride at wanting the British championship he even declared he was changing his own name to English! So why bin the belt they valued so much?

We later negotiated another fight with Saunders that came to nothing – we sent him the contract and never got it back. The same thing has happened in his dealings with Matchroom, with him calling people out and not signing the contract.

This time around it was a straightforward purse bid for the Langford fight that I won and he signed the contract. But my hunch all along was that he wouldn’t take the fight.

In the meantime, the old man is up at ITV trying to get a deal there and obviously doesn’t want to risk his meal ticket. That is what this is all about, he is trying to sell his kid to ITV and doesn’t want to risk slipping off the gravy train.

Eubank and son deserve each other. The ones who don’t deserve their madness are the boxing fans and honest professionals like Langford, who was diligently preparing for a fight that was always likely to fall by the wayside.

Tennis elbow? New balls please, more like pussy.

Tomorrow: Frank reveals what the future holds for brave Beefy

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