Don't dismiss James DeGale as a relic of the sport – Chris Eubank Jr deserves his credit

Eubank finally found urgency, so far missing in his career, to chase DeGale over the usual hurdles of a 12-round fight, writes Steve Bunce. It was dirty, ugly, bruising, bloody and a lot harder than either of the two sore and cut boxers expected

To dismiss DeGale as a terminally shot fighter is to reject the subtle changes in Eubank’s game (Getty)

James DeGale was in a tight spot on both sides of the ropes on Saturday night at the O2 when his career finished at the end of Chris Eubank Jr’s relentless flying fists.

Eubank finally found urgency, so far missing in his career, to chase DeGale over the usual hurdles of a 12-round fight, which was dirty, ugly, bruising, bloody and a lot harder than either of the two sore and cut boxers expected. Eubank won on points, the judges in agreement but split wide with their interpretation of a fight that started after Eubank entered the ring to pantomime booing. It was dad redux time. The theme would continue.

DeGale won the opening round, his timing fine and Eubank looked like the old Eubank. In round one DeGale also picked up a nick by his left eye, later a nasty cut and the pair were guilty of elbows, shoulders and wayward heads throughout the brawl. In round two DeGale was given a count – had he not flattened out on the ropes he would have been on his back. The fight shifted from that point.

Eubank knew that if he double and triple stepped across DeGale’s hands and legs, and threw looping shots, nothing from any text book, he would connect. DeGale found some rhythm in four and five, but Eubank listened to his corner, listened to their clear shouts as the minutes in each round ticked away and responded accordingly. DeGale finished each round under threat and smiling at the bell in cock-eyed defiance, but that simple deceit is the surest way to convince an indecisive judge that you have just lost the round.

In round 10 Eubank forced DeGale to go down, he hit him on the canvas for luck and missed with another punch. DeGale was in danger of getting stopped, but – as I said in Saturday’s preview – he has previous for testing positive for heroics. Eubank lost a point for dunking and dumping DeGale in the 11th – one of his father’s favoured tricks – and in the last round he put DeGale, who was the first British boxer to win Olympic gold and then a professional world title, under 180 seconds of pressure. There was no embrace at the bell, each with one raised fist turned away. The hostilities were not over and a few seemingly kind words in the post-fight interviews will never heal the hate they share. There are too many angry boxers at the moment, men late in careers or retired and still holding nasty thoughts for an old opponent.

By midnight DeGale’s facial wounds were stitched, Eubank was celebrating and a future, which was a flimsy concept a few hours earlier, was under construction. But looking back and going over the maul again on a late-shift tube across London, it was clear that the fight was taking on a life of its own as people shifted the changing stones to pass judgement; shifting to make sense of a hard struggle. It was not pretty but calling it a bore is cruel. Up close it was the type of fight that ends or alters a career and permanently remains inside a boxer’s head, a place nobody is in a hurry to visit again.

To dismiss DeGale as a terminally shot fighter is to reject the subtle changes in Eubank’s game, his risk-taking and his ability to let his hands go when he traps a man; in a week when the father and son dynamic has been analysed, the son finally fought like the father. It was the only way he would ever walk free from the shadow and be able to stand shoulder to shoulder with his father, who wore his latest shiny badge, a trinket from his part-time job as a lawmaker in some forsaken American backwater.

There was bold talk that the established and undoubted gap in class, painted as an impregnable wall before the fight, would once again prove a barrier beyond fantasy for Eubank. In some rounds DeGale did have the time to remember what he knows, to use the skills acquired through hardship and pain going back to when he was a fat boy at the Dale Youth club 20 years ago. On Saturday, for most of the fight, he was busy simply having to find ways to survive and it is hard to be a contortionist in the twilight of any career – in the ring, at this level, there is not a painless way to lose or a corner to hide in.

However, there were a lot of tighter rounds than people want to remember, but Eubank, like his glorious dad, never lost the last minute of any of the twelve completed rounds. It is possible that even the best DeGale, who had a worrying tendency to drift in fights, would have needed to be at his sharpest to win the last sixty seconds of the rounds on Saturday night. The bookies placed cigarette papers between the two all week and their combined caution and not the late cries of fanatics howling should provide a backdrop for history of a genuinely raw grudge fight.

Eubank did listen to the trio operating in his corner, his eyes focused on new man, Nate Vasquez, during the breaks and also the words from his father and life-long coach, Ronnie Davies, were both on offer. It was Davies providing the crucial time checks as the final minute loomed in each round and Eubank’s reaction to the shout won him the fight. Eubank will never be pleasant on the eye as a boxer and neither was his father, but if he can be persuaded to work in rounds he will be dangerous.

James DeGale is not the relic that many would assume him to be (Reuters)

DeGale has been refreshingly loyal to his trainer Jim McDonnell during a long decade of fights as the often lunatic advisors, promoters, charlatans, fight fixers and television companies have floated by in an almost non-stop procession of new promises and old dreams wrapped in counterfeit schemes. Jimmy Mac did his very best on Saturday and DeGale listened hard until the bitter final seconds. They were an old-school team in a transient sport and they will be missed.

The fight in the end was simple: Eubank won because he was busier, a career move that might now give him a career. The debate at ringside, online and on that rattling post-midnight tube was about just how gone DeGale was. I’m not convinced he was the relic that fits the narrative. I think Eubank deserves some credit. A lot of credit.