FIFTY-three years ago on the 8th August, 1966, in Dulwich, South London, Christopher Livingstone Eubanks (he later dropped the ‘s’ from his name) was born. Eubank became a two-weight world champion, and had one of the fiercest domestic rivalries in British boxing history.

  • WHEN Eubank was 16, his father sent him to live with his mother in the South Bronx district of New York City. This was because while attending Thomas Calton Secondary School in Peckham, Eubank was suspended 18 times before finally being expelled from the school.
  • WHILE in New York Eubank joined the Jerome Boxing Club on Westchester Avenue, this was a move to help him beat a drug, alcohol and shoplifting addiction. In addition he started to regularly attend his local church and school.
  • EUBANK made his professional boxing debut in the Sands Casino Hotel in Atlantic City, against Tim Brown, winning a 4-round unanimous decision. Eubank would finally come to the public’s attention when he beat a former Nigel Benn opponent, Anthony Logan, in a more convincing fashion.
  • EUBANK and Benn would go on to have a heated domestic rivalry. The first fight, in 1990, at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham ended with victory for Eubank, scoring a 9th round TKO over the ‘Dark Destroyer’. The second fight took place in front of 42,000 fans at Manchester United’s Old Trafford three years later, and ended in a draw.
  • PRIOR to Eubank vs. Benn II, Don King had negotiated the contracts so that he would own both the winner and the loser of the fight, but because the fight ended in a draw, Barry Hearn signed Eubank claiming a draw was not in the contract.
  • IN 1991 and 1993 Eubank was awarded Britain’s Best Dressed Man award by the Menswear Association of Great Britain. He was famous for wearing jodhpurs, bowler hat, riding boots and sporting a monocle.
  • IN 1996 he purchased the Lordship of the Manor of Brighton at auction. Eubank used the ancient right of this position to appoint a town crier, and take over a prime site in the city, which he would develop into 69 flats for the homeless, spending 1.25 million pounds of his own money.
  • HE has a large collection of vehicles including a huge American Peterbilt 379 truck cab, the largest truck in Europe, which he would often be seen driving around Brighton.
  • EUBANK has made many television appearances since retiring from boxing including being the guest presenter on Top of the Pops, and starring in the in the reality television show Celebrity Big Brother on Channel 4, where he was the first celebrity to be evicted. He also had a short lived reality TV series called At Home With The Eubanks on Channel 5.
  • IN November 2009, Eubank was declared bankrupt, owing £1.3 million in taxes.