Chris Eubank

Christopher Livingstone Eubank (also Christopher Livingstone Eubank Sr. born 8 August 1966) is a British former professional boxer who competed from 1985 to 1998. He held the World Boxing Organization (WBO) middleweight and super-middleweight titles between 1990 and 1995, and is ranked by BoxRec as the third best British super-middleweight boxer of all time.

He reigned as world champion for over five years, was undefeated in his first 10 years as a professional, and remained undefeated at middleweight. His world title contests against fellow Britons Nigel Benn and Michael Watson helped British boxing ride a peak of popularity in the 1990s, with Eubank's eccentric personality making him one of the most recognisable celebrities of the period.

In his final two years of boxing he challenged then-up and coming contender Joe Calzaghe in a bid to reclaim his WBO super-middleweight title, with a victorious Calzaghe later claiming that it was the toughest fight of his whole career. Eubank's last two fights were against WBO junior-heavyweight champion Carl Thompson, both of which were brutal encounters. In the rematch, Eubank was stopped for the first and only time in his career.

Eubank is credited for his bravery in the ring, in which he was able to take considerable amounts of punishment from power punchers en route to his victories and defeats, and for this he is said to have a "granite" chin. He is also known for his heel-like elitist persona: Speaking and dressing like an upper-class elite, vaulting over the ring ropes as an entrance, but also the art of mental warfare, notably against Nigel Benn for their first bout. His son, Chris Eubank Jr., is also a professional boxer.

Eubank, was born on 8 August 1966, in Dulwich, South London, to Rachel Scollins. From when he was two months old until the age of six, he was raised in Jamaica. On his return to England, he lived in Stoke Newington, Dalston in the London Borough of Hackney and then Peckham in the London Borough of Southwark, in a largely impoverished environment.

He attended Northwold Primary School in Upper Clapton, Bellenden Junior School, and then Thomas Calton Secondary School in Peckham, from where he was suspended 18 times in one year and then expelled, despite claiming he was gallantly trying to protect other children from bullies. Some time was spent at Orchard Lodge Regional Resource Centre, Anerley, in 1981. When he was 16, his father sent him to New York to live with his mother in the tough South Bronx district.

Eubank made a fresh start in New York, where he trained at the Jerome Boxing Club on Westchester Avenue, following in the footsteps of his elder brothers (twins, Peter and Simon Eubank) back in England. Eubank became obsessed with boxing training and went to the gym every day, working as caretaker to pay his way. He won the 1984 Spanish Golden Gloves Tournament and also got to the semi-final stage of the main Golden Gloves tourney at Madison Square Garden at aged 18.

He writes in his autobiography that his drive to succeed in boxing came through his drive to become an accepted individual, largely caused by subjective bullying from his elder brothers.