“Disrespectful”.
That’s how Nick Blackwell describes the decision of his upcoming opponent Chris Eubank Jr to not only knock out his young sparring partner, but to share video footage of the incident online.
The 25-year-old will defend his British middleweight title against Eubank at Wembley Arena on Saturday, and told JOE he would never think of behaving in the way his challenger did.
“If I was him and someone had been videoing it I’d have said don’t you dare put it out,” he explains.
“I’ve been sparring and had my sponsors filming it and told them ‘don’t put it out’. If they don’t know that much about boxing they’ll ask why not, and I’ll explain that it’s disrespectful. You don’t do that in boxing – what happens in the gym stays in the gym.
“I don’t know if it’s because he’s a bit insecure but obviously he felt good about it and wanted to put it out there – maybe he even went and looked for the CCTV and got the footage off that – he must have been really happy and jolly about it but I don’t know why.”
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Blackwell, nicknamed ‘Bang Bang’ for his explosive style, takes his training hugely seriously. His 19-3-1 career record includes a couple of big setbacks, not least a loss by unanimous decision to Billy Joe Saunders in December 2012, but he is three-for-three since coming under Gary Lockett’s tutelage in 2015.
The Wiltshire-born fighter has been out in Cardiff at the Welshman’s training camp since shortly after Christmas, working on his conditioning and high-intensity work in the lead-up to the Wembley bout, and tells JOE “I’ve never felt so positive about a fight in my life.”
And while others can be quick to reach for excuses after defeats, Blackwell is more keen to look forward and identify the ways in which he is better-prepared under the guidance of his new coach.
When you talk to him about his career, the surprise victory over John Ryder in May 2015 – his first fight with Lockett as his trainer – seems to be a key milestone. There’s his pre-Ryder efforts, and then there’s what has come since.
“[For the Saunders fight] I had my old trainer who started out the same time as I did, and we both learned on the job,” he says.
“I wasn’t getting the right advice, but now I’m with Gary Lockett.”
“For the John Ryder fight it was the same sort of experience, he was boxing my head off for the first three or four rounds but Gary was keeping me calm and giving me the right advice and eventually it paid off. It does help to have someone in your corner, just keeping you positive.
“It seems Eubank doesn’t have respect for his trainer and he seems to just be doing what he wants to do instead of doing what he wants to do. It should never be like that, it should always be the opposite way around. I’d never tell Gary what I want to do, and that’s how it should be.”
The apparent difference in attitude between the two opponents could feasibly be down to their vastly contrasting backgrounds.
While Eubank is perceived to have had a relatively privileged upbringing – Blackwell describes him as being “silver spoon fed” – to say Blackwell came up the hard way would be an understatement.
We had heard rumours about ‘Bang Bang’ once fighting twice in the same night when he was coming up as a teenager, so we had to ask him for the full story.
“At the time I was [fighting at] 11 stone and somebody who was 13 stone pulled out and I fought [his opponent] as well,” he says.
“In the first round he beat the crap out of me and I was worried, but then after that I got out there, I let him have it and I knocked him out.
“People started coming up to me and saying ‘you’ve got something there, we can do something with you’ – it just went from there really, I just sort of fell in love with it.”
Born in Trowbridge, Blackwell turned pro at 18 but even his path before then was far from orthodox.
Rather than going through the amateur ranks in a conventional sense, as has been the case with many British fighters, his beginnings were more humble.
Instead of anything approaching an Olympic berth, he began fighting in private clubs from the age of 16, on occasion against fully-grown men, and he says “You’d just get in, it didn’t matter how big you are, and start fighting.”
But he credits this background, and the tough path to the top which followed, for helping him reach the position he finds himself in now.
“You know, I wouldn’t change it,” he says.
“You see a lot of these fighters who have had a more glamorous background, maybe they’ve gone to the Olympics and won medals. When they turn pro they get looked after for their first 10 fights, and then they get chucked in with someone who’s half-decent and they’re in trouble.
“I’m up for a challenge, I’ll fight anybody, and the first fight I had was against somebody who was having their first fight as well so it was a 50:50 fight.
“Not many lads would want to do that but for me that’s what I wanted, I’ve never really wanted an easy route through it – those early fights were my apprenticeship as a pro boxer and I learnt a lot from those fights. That’s the reason why I’m in the position I’m in now, I suppose.”
Being the underdog against a man one year his senior is unlikely to faze someone who has fought at a two-stone disadvantage in the past, and Blackwell has been working hard to identify his opponent’s weaknesses.
He expects Eubank to leave himself open, in part due to the “weird, very awkward angles” from which he is prone to take shots, and has done his homework on the 26-year-old’s last outing against Spike O’Sullivan.
“Spike isn’t the fastest of fighters but he is very hard to fight, and Eubank was getting caught with slow shots. If he starts throwing shots like that with me he’s in trouble,” he explains.
“I’m going to put him under more pressure than Spike did and I’m going to catch him with more shots than Spike did, and I won’t be giving up, you know. He can catch me with whatever he wants but I’m quite tough, and I’ll put him in a place he’s never been before so we can see what kind of fighter he is.”
Blackwell is under no illusions that he will not be the favourite at Wembley – most bookies have him at 4/1, with Eubank odds-on for victory – but he likes it that way.
“I sort of rise to the occasion when I’m an underdog – I’ve never really known any different so when I’m not the underdog, I don’t like it,” he laughs.
“Everyone thinks it’s going to be an easy night for Eubank but he knows and I know it’s not going to be easy for him. He knows I’m the hardest fight he’s had and I’m going to win as well – I’m very confident of beating him.”
Nick Blackwell takes on Chris Eubank Jr at Wembley Arena on Saturday, March 25.Â
