HARLEM EUBANK is using the heartbreaking dementia battle his brave father lost to fuel his own fight career.
After suffering 20 punishing losses, 11 by knockout, 61-year-old Simon Eubank was beaten by frontal lobe dementia in September 2023.
Harlem Eubank with his later father Simon[/caption]
Jack Catterall and Eubank square off[/caption]
Eubank with his legendary uncle Chris Sr[/caption]
In a gut-wrenching SunSport exclusive, British ring legend and Simon’s brother, Chris Sr, revealed his sibling was so brutalised by the sport that Harlem fed him, in his final few months, through a baby’s bottle.
Ahead of his welterweight fight with Jack Catterall Saturday, in the Manchester man’s backyard, we asked 31-year-old Harlem how he wrestles with competing in the same savage sport that snatched his dad away, so cruelly and so soon.
“It’s tough,” he said.
“But I feel like, while you’re active in the sport, you have to remove the dangers from your mind and your thinking.
“You have to just focus on the task at hand. It’s a very dangerous sport, that we all sign up for.
“And because of that I think it’s important that all fighters, on every level, get the credit and respect that they deserve.
“Because they are the ones going in there and putting their life on the line.
“My dad, you could say he was taken advantage of, in a very dangerous sport. And it was, it was sad to see.
“His decline with dementia was fast. But I can only use that to motivate myself to achieve my targets and make my dad proud.”
The Eubank name is unfortunately linked with a string of boxing tragedies, starting with Sr’s 1991 win over Michael Watson that left him with life-changing brain injuries.
And, 25 years later, 35-year-old Jr inflicted a similarly devastating defeat on Nick Blackwell.
Now Harlem must live with the wreckage that boxing made of his dad – who never rose up the ranks to the recognition and riches that his brother or nephew have enjoyed.
But instead of being softened by self-pity or growing hateful of the hurt business, he uses the generations of family experience to shape his own approach.
He told us: “When you choose to fight for a living, and when you choose to go between the ropes, you know what you signed up for.
“You sign up for the control to go out of your hands.
His decline with dementia was fast. But I can only use that to motivate myself to achieve my targets and make my dad proud.
Harlem Eubank
“You have to put the control into your training and into your preparation to make sure you’re the most prepared you can be, going into what could be a brutal fight.
“You need to have a knowledgeable and reliable team around you.
“And I sadly don’t think my dad ever had that and that’s sad, because the result was dementia.”
Jr’s rematch with 28-year-old Conor Benn has just been confirmed for September 20, which rules the middleweight out of world title contention for another six months, at least.
That leaves an outside chance that Harlem, who only turned pro in 2017 and cut his teeth on small-hall shows in boxing backwaters like Portsmouth and SWINDON, could pip his high-profile cousin to a golden belt.
“That would be something, wouldn’t it?” he grinned. “Yeah, that’d be a nice little bragging right to hold over the older cousin.
“I don’t think it’ll feel like any extra, added motivation in the ring, but you never know.”
Eubank is now on the verge of welterweight glory[/caption]
Eubank earned his stripes on the small halls[/caption]
Chris Eubank Jr with cousin Harlem[/caption]
