Ring Magazine #1: Eubank-Benn III

Despite countless misgivings when the fight was first floated over three years ago, and those apprehensions lasting until the day of the fight, Conor Benn and Chris Eubank Jr. squared up nicely on the weekend. It was so exciting that you could forget Eubank being fined £100,000 for ill behaviour and a further £375,000 for being less than one ounce overweight, overnight it became old news that this moment took so long because of Benn's two failed drug tests (incurring no financial punishment).

Across 12 competitive rounds, Benn did a lot of great fighting, while Eubank did a lot of great fighting and boxing. Eubank deployed his jab well, outworked Benn, outlanded him, and kept him on the ropes for enough of the evening to win a comfortable, though by no means easy unanimous decision of 116-112 (8 rounds to 4) on all three scorecards. A fair result. Neither man can complain, as both left it to the judges by not scoring a knockout victory.

Though as is now often the case in British boxing, the familiar rogues' gallery popped up to spout catchphrases. Steve Bunce, who would describe his battle with baldness as a close fight, insisted that he wasn't calling the scorecards incorrect but invoked the meaningless adage that he believed "they were too wide". Eddie Hearn, a man renowned for complaining despite having lived a life of luxury devoid of hardship and struggle, insisted "I'm not complaining" in his complaints to cast doubt on the decision. The media at the post-fight press conference, so barren of real journalists that Radio Rahim was the only bright spot, lined up to provide freelance therapy for the loser as they soliloquized his valiant effort while cycling between the most boring interview statements in lieue of questions: "tell us how you feel", "put it into words what that meant for you" and "describe that feeling for us".

Normally, a good fight stands on its own merit. But the bells, whistles, and peoples attached tend to make or break a place in the history books. There was always a shameless invocation of nostalgia as there was no real reason for Conor Benn, a welterweight, to be facing Chris Eubank Jr., a super-middleweight, other than their fathers having faced each other over 30 years ago. This fight regrettably has no foreseeable legacy beyond being decently entertaining and a footnote to the previous Benn-Eubank fights, like Ali-Frazier IV, it's comparable in the way that the live-action Jungle Book doesn't hold a candle to the original. Except the two Eubank-Benn fights and two Jungle Book movies didn't take place in the same calendar year as ReMatchroom could threaten.

Many afflicted by recency bias and partial to spin will disagree and it's hard to blame them as this Ring Magazine event took 'fake it til you make it' to new heights. Even though this card was happening in London rather than Riyadh, there were no ring girls to hold up round cards. We were instead treated to the farce of celebrity lookalikes taking turns to hold up a number which is already being displayed on screens both live in the arena and television screens at home (and usually announced over speaker systems too).

Boxing doesn't actually need anyone to hold up round cards. Ok, it doesn't have to be an attractive woman for the crowds to ogle. But if a tradition is to be scrapped for being an antiquated or superfluous surely it's preferable to scrap it in its entirety, rather than parading around impersonators of Ginger Guitarist, a fictional cannibal from a 1991 movie, and David Beckham. What does it say about the state of boxing that they couldn't even book the real Anthony Joshua?

I wish DAZN would learn to scrap their awful audio mixing, which featured again in the Fatal Fury event. Other sports do not upload highlights like this on YouTube. I wish they would part ways with Darren Barker and Barry Jones, or at the very least tell them that they've been hired to commentate the fight and not to provide coaching instructions for 12 rounds. Imagine how few people would watch [insert any of the sports more popular/successful than boxing] if the ex-pros they hired for commentary spent entire contests saying "here's everything they're doing wrong, uh-uh that's not how I would've done it, let me give you a needlessly repetitive descriptions of what I would rather be watching".

It's been nearly 10 years since he retired and I still miss Jim Watt. It's been over 10 years and I still wish Don King was running the sport. One particularly fun example of the new school having no sense of gravitas or ingenuity was when someone started the rumour that Chris Eubank Jr. had suffered a broken jaw and Conor Benn publicly repeated it at the post-fight press conference. A quick-witted promoter like King wouldn't simply deny the rumour, he would turn it on those who started it to try and diminish Eubank's accomplishment. "What a hunormous determination, fantastonomical ability, and effervescent gumption that Christopher Livingstone Eubank Junior was able to fight a championship distance against a man 7 years younger than himself with his lower mandible hanging by a mere thread, only in America!" or words to that effect.

Like many who tune into boxing, it's done to be entertained by boxing. Not outside elements like e-sports contests and certainly not to watch KSI and IShowSpeed doing whatever it is that they don't do. Given the presence of lookalikes, can we be sure it was really them? And I don't think even the real Gordon Ramsay knows what Gordon Ramsay looks like. The midfight interview with the Boxraw CEO was another strange choice. You've never seen a football game interrupted for an interview with the CEO of Adidas or Nike. You probably don't know the CEO of any company who has a sponsorship deal with a sports event and that's because competent sports know the viewing public is not remotely interested in that. Thankfully, in spite of his best efforts, I don't think anyone came away from watching the card knowing that Rick Reeno is in charge of the Ring Magazine website and in the process of a soft coup.

It wasn't a complete catastrophe thoughever and there were some good choices like jazzing up the on-screen graphics, transitions and effects. A huge plus was that Emily Austin was replaced by Olivia Buzaglo, who as far as I know has never insinuated that crimes against humanity are 'fake news'. They also skipped playing the Saudi Arabian national anthem (presumably because they'd struggle to mask the jeering even if DAZN had good audio engineers), though there was still a rendition of "God Save Jimmy Savile's Friend" despite this not being a title fight. The card as a whole was cromulent although one knockdown across 5 fights all going the full 12 rounds is considered a poor rate of exchange by some.

Looking forward, ideally there would be;

• no Eubank-Benn IV,
• more fights held around the world (preferably outside of London when in the UK),
• clarification from the powers-that-be about what is going on with Ring Magazine belts, as one was paraded around in this fight without explanation,
• a retvrn to referees saying "touch gloves if you want to" instead of making a performative scene,
• no unwieldy list of sponsors read by the ring announcers (or if needs be, they'd be saved for the main event only instead of repeated),
• a brainstorming session on coming up with a more creative name for these than Ring Magazine 1, Ring Magazine 2, Ring Magazine 3 etc...,
• and, my beloved Shangri-La, zero gambling ads.

Overall, Ring Magazine #1 was a 7/10 evening as there's room to improve. It was saved by the strength of the main event but future matchmakers will need to do better (lest someone accidentally makes Yarde-Arthur IV). On Benn and Eubank, it made little sense the two men endangered their own health for a mismatch instead of facing top competitors in their own weight divisions. This match-up had the obvious obstacle that if Benn won, people would say that he beat a weight-drained man who will be in his 40s in a few years. And now that Eubank has won, well, he won against a smaller man that he always supposed to beat.

The fight was for the pride (and the earnings potential of name value), though given how Eubank Jr. sounded after the fight I'm not sure how many people of the future will say it was worth it.