Boxing: Eubank calls himself to account: Wealth taxes champion

Wednesday 12 October 1994 23:02 BST
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(First Edition)

NO MATTER how big a cheque may be waved in front of Chris Eubank, it is virtually certain to be six and out for Britain's most controversial lord of the ring.

After another half a dozen fights to complete his exhausting commitment to Sky Television, Eubank intends to be on his bike - or Harley Davidson in his case - and to enjoy his millions.

Not even the crown jewels would persuade him into a unification match against the International Boxing Federation champion, James Toney, Eubank insisted as he sweated off the pounds to make the 12-stone limit for Saturday's World Boxing Organisation super-middleweight defence against Minnesota's Dan Schommer at the Sun City Superbowl in South Africa.

It has been chronicled on many occasions that Eubank will head off for less physically demanding pastures once the adequate amount of noughts have piled their way into his bank account.

With Sky's deal worth pounds 10m, it is not suprising that retirement beckons afterwards - and he hopes to go out with one final blast at Nigel Benn in mid-summer.

Eubank, 28, is now focused on noughts of a different variety - to be 'one in one billion people, not one in one million, to completely buck the system'.

He proclaimed: 'There are many, many millions of people who never have the chance to do that, to walk away with the right money in the back pocket. I've got the opportunity to be that one in a billion.

'I haven't bucked the system yet, but hopefully I will and I'll have the opportunity to walk away. As they say, it's never over until the fat lady sings. But if I keep winning under this Sky deal, I will have enough money and I will quit.

'At the end of these six fights, I intend to leave this game with my face intact. I want to be clever. I'm speaking loud about this now, making it public, because I want to force myself into retiring, make myself get out.

'The goal has been money. I've got to 41 fights unbeaten, although I've won some of those fights by the plaque on my teeth. The reason I've been lucky is that I've been good-natured, I don't behave wrongly, I do right by people, by teaching people.'

Television contracts and politics will always threaten to knock out Eubank-Benn Mark III, with the World Boxing Council champion Benn committed to ITV and Eubank the exclusive property of Sky. 'Nigel Benn is my aim, and why couldn't it happen in June?' Eubank said.

Benn would be a memorable way to bring down the curtain. Being locked in overdrive, Eubank could have completed seven of his contracted eight Sky bouts by the spring. Schommer, 34, is the third of those opponents with York's Henry Wharton already under contract to be No 4 at Manchester's G-Mex Centre on 10 December.

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