The old Eubank one, two.

Several inconvenient truths replace old-fashioned greed when money is not the reason a fight fails to happen in the modern boxing business.

Chris Eubank Jr has weaved a glorious path from negotiating table to negotiating table, leaving fights unmade, leaving boxing's hardened practitioners livid and at the same time selling himself as Britain's greatest fighter. It has been an intoxicating blend of utter delusion and conviction delivered almost daily by the fighter’s father.

On Saturday night Eubank Jr fights for the IBO version of the super-middleweight world title at Olympia against an Australian called Renold Quinlan live on ITV. There was a time when as many as 25 IBO world title fights took place in Britain each year, most slipping under the radar, and there is just a chance that Eubank Jr will do for the IBO what Eubank Sr did for the WBO 27 years ago.

The IBO is a good sanctioning body, but they followed the IBF and the WBO, who joined flawed sentinels the WBA and WBC, into a cluttered sport and the IBO has remained just outside the big four for no other reason than their late arrival at the alphabet-soup carnival. So far the IBO has avoided the attention of the FBI in America and for a boxing governing body that is impressive.

Quinlan has a face that looks like it has been shaped from confrontations in the various dark corners of life, he has lost just once in twelve fights and has no profile outside of the IBO's orbit and the often exotic venues of the Australian fighting frontier; he is known as the Dunghutti Destroyer and they love him in Dubbo at the social club. He is not the worst world champion to fight in Britain and he is not the worst overseas fighter in a world title fight, but he would not be in my British top ten at super-middleweight. There was a challenger last year in Britain marked at 80-1 against, which is an insult; Quinlan and Eubank Jr will be a terrific scrap.

The WBO meant less than the IBO when Eubank Sr beat Nigel Benn live on ITV one glorious winter's night in 1990; the fight, one of the best in British boxing history, changed a sport, launching the transformation of a business from its black and white existence into the technicolour beast it is today. However, Eubank Sr had natural rivals in Benn and Michael Watson and ITV had no rivals; the business now is so much more complicated than it was in the early nineties. Thankfully, the Eubank dialogue remains the same, as mad, as entertaining and at times as infuriating now as it was then.

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“Boxing is a business and in business one needs to make the right decision,” said Eubank Sr. “Quinlan is the right decision now and there will be harder decisions to make in the future.” The Eubank father and son team, which is completed and complimented by Ronnie Davies, the man that has prepared the pair for all their fights, have an answer for every problem and the thickest skin in a thin-skinned world. “It is totally impossible to do business with the dad,” insisted Frank Warren when the fifth or sixth attempt at making the Billy Joe Saunders rematch collapsed.

The Quinlan fight has all the absurd trappings to make it memorable; Quinlan is clearly too brave for his own limitations and Eubank Jr, like his father, loves to hit flat-footed men with guts. The show will start with the trademark vault over the ropes, there will be about eight rounds of blood and pain before Eubank wins a world title. The same belt that Wladimir Klitschko, Joe Calzaghe and Ricky Hatton held at various times.

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