FIGHTING PRIVILEGE

"There is no wealth but life." - John Ruskin

As far as I understand the general narrative trope throughout the history of boxing, it has far more often tended to favour the story of the down-and-out, blue-collar/working-class underdog who the crowds hope and pray to see become a champion, world or domestic. There's clearly just something about the rise from the bottom to the top and the overcoming of adversity, whether it be class, race or general hard luck stories, that people find irresistible. Perhaps it gives them a sense of hope, or even religious faith that their own life situations can eventually be overcome. Strange then, that in the case of Chris Eubank Jr we have the complete counter-opposite to those cliches and a character (on the surface) who is emotionally and psychologically harder to empathize with than the more atypical 'rags to riches' 'Rocky' types.

The son of boxing royalty, the historically world-famous middleweight boxer Chris Eubank, who himself divided fight fans through the almost absurd contrast of his Jamaican/English eccentric personality (a cross between Phillip Smith (Don Warrington) in Rising Damp crossed with P.G. Wodehouse's Bertie Wooster) and his savage skills in the ring, Chris Eubank Jr has had the unenviable task of living up to his dad's legendary status which is surely no mean feat. Children of famous parents often struggle with the long shadow cast over their own lives, perpetual princes or princesses forever denied the throne.

Although raised by a rich and famous father, what may have seemed like a privileged life to the British public looking in through a mostly tabloid lens may have actually been more difficult for young Eubank Jr than they might have truly appreciated. It was far easier to simply assume that the young boy lived a life of milk and honey than think he may have suffered his own subjective hardships, especially given all the intrusive pressures of the snooping press on his life which meant he had no way to grow up without being scrutinized at every turn of his development from boy to man. But this perspective requires nuance and we know that the press rarely works on that basis and so Eubank Jr was always going to be Daddy's spoilt rich kid son who many secretly hoped would fail to replicate his success.

Of course, it didn't help that general perception that Eubank Jr attended a private school though by all accounts he got into considerable trouble, picking fights and acting in a belligerent fashion towards his teachers resulting in him ultimately getting expelled. Perhaps the conflict he faced being Eubank Sr's son forced him to rebel at this early age where he felt the pressures in microcosm that his father had experienced on a far larger macro scale.

And maybe it was the mere fact that he attended a private school which might explain why there has been a strange seeming indifference to Jr's fights throughout the twelve years since his first professional fight. Impressively comfortable with taking on the mantle of an anti-hero archetype, even though his professional conduct as a sportsman has been nothing but exemplary compared to his more lionized peers, it may have been an advantage of sorts for Jr to have the crowds continually turn against him.

But slowly, the long arc of Jr's story is proving (to paraphrase 'The Dark Knight')  that perhaps if you live long enough as a villain (of sorts) you'll eventually see yourself become the hero.

And so this became increasingly the case on Saturday night when Eubank Jr secured his revenge victory against Liam Smith after a shock defeat to the same fighter back in January 21st, 2023.  Overcoming not only the effects of his loss to Smith, Eubank Jr was also still wrestling with the devastating loss of his brother Sebastian and the perilous effect it had clearly had on Eubank Sr's mental health ( even turning against Jr in public interviews) as well as being involved in a controversial super fight with a major rival that got pulled at the last minute due to his opponent being found to have been contaminated with clomifene.

No man is averse to the demons of doubt that can keep you awake night after night when having experienced several setbacks as significant as those Eubank Jr had suffered in recent times but somehow, proving all the doubters wrong, the son of the great Eubank Sr stepped out of his father's shadow at the AO Arena in Manchester at the weekend and proved that perhaps his biggest adversary all this time was not the opponents he faced in the opposite corner ...

But his privilege.

And by showing that he had the same hunger, mental and physical toughness as a James J. Braddock, Jack Johnson or Marciano, he was no longer having to apologise for being born into wealth.

For as Henry Ward Beecher once said: 'he is rich or poor according to what he is, not according to what he has."