Britain joined the US on the world middleweight scene when Chris Eubank Sr defeated Nigel Benn in their 1990 epic for the WBO title.
The World Boxing Organisation were still in their infancy, and their belt carried limited significance, but Eubank’s victory did at least keep it in British hands a little longer after Benn’s reign ended.
Elsewhere, Jamaican-born New Yorker Mike McCallum held the WBA version, while Iowa southpaw Michael Nunn was into his third year as IBF champion. The WBC belt was vacant, though the destructive Julian Jackson would claim it a month after Eubank–Benn.
Meanwhile, James Toney was only months away from winning his first world title and beginning his ascent to pound-for-pound number one.
Eubank held the WBO strap for seven months before moving up to super-middleweight. One reason, he admits, was the presence of the aforementioned American middleweight that he had no interest in facing, as he explained frankly on Call Chris Eubank.
“James Toney – if he was ever number one contender for my title, I would then have to fight him. He was champion in his own right, he was never a contender. I’m not trying to unify against him because I don’t see how I beat him.
“I’m glad that Nigel Benn was my adversary. He was the one. I’m glad it wasn’t James Toney.
“I couldn’t see a way to beat James Toney. You can’t beat guys like that. And how Roy Jones did it against James Toney was on reflex. I didn’t have the reflexes that Roy Jones had.”
Toney’s career would encompass defining fights against Nunn, McCallum and Jones, and later victories up the weights over Iran Barkley and Vassiliy Jirov – the latter earning him the IBF cruiserweight title – before even a brief run at heavyweight.
Eubank’s résumé pales in comparison, but the Eubank-Benn rivalry remains one of the greatest in British boxing history.
