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January 2001
Each month we bring you a selection of articles from the current and past issues of BOXING MONTHLY. To buy the magazine, see our subscription or back issues pages, or use our world distribution map to find a news-stand copy. Why not use our Interactive Forum to express your own boxing comments and opinions!
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ENIGMA NO. 1
He's unbeaten and the mandatory challenger for the WBA middleweight title. But just how good is Howard Eastman? 2001 should reveal all, says MICHAEL GILL |
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HOWARD EASTMAN
- Get Big Pic One of the most edifying prospects facing British fight fans in the New Year will be finally discovering the full extent of Howard Eastman's precocious talent. For almost seven years as a professional the 5ft 11ins Battersea middleweight has teased and titillated as he's sauntered to 30 successive wins and the Southern Area, British, Commonwealth (not to mention assorted Inter Continental) titles without ever shifting beyond third gear. Since emigrating to these shores from New Amsterdam, Guyana, aged 15, he has survived a distressing adolescence and mediocre amateur grounding to rise to his present status as the WBA's mandatory middleweight contender and one of the consummate craftsmen of contemporary British boxing. Overtly cautious and self-preserving on occasion, he maintains a monastic training ethic and is effortlessly destructive (27 KO wins), blessed, it seems, with every conceivable physical attribute. And while the opposition slain en route (predominately obscure Eastern Europeans) has lately been the source of much media derision, please note that Eastman has held the British championship for over two years now yet none of his titleless rivals such as Robert McCracken, Jason Matthews or Ryan Rhodes have been barging down any doors to get at him. The smouldering contender remains a study of menace beyond the ropes where his complex, philosophical and outspoken manner have cast him to the "hard work, don't touch" drawer. (For the record I found Eastman among the most engaging, courteous and obliging subjects I've encountered in a decade covering the sport). In December month he entered his 31st year and High Noon is approaching. Manager Frank Maloney and promoters Panix have masterfully delivered him into the mandatory slot for the WBA belt, with negligible wear and tear, but has he accumulated the experience required to win it? I met Eastman at the Henry Cooper gym, Bermondsey to search for an answer. BM: I understand your resilience was partly fashioned by life on the street during your late adolescence. HE: Compared to the Caribbean where parents are much stricter, English kids get away with murder. When I arrived in England . . . freedom. I had a wild upbringing and eventually my dad threw me out in the cold. I was forced to live rough, occasionally slept on friends' floors or sofas and stayed for a while at the Y.M.C.A in Stockwell. Not a nice place for young kids to be, yet even they kicked me out. But those experiences helped mould my character and I picked myself up from the street and, hey presto, I'm here today. BM: The stage seemed set for Howard Eastman to sparkle in your last start when you challenged Australia's Sam Soliman for the Commonwealth crown. Despite cruising home comfortably on points again there were times when your mind seemed away with the pixies! HE: I'm never happy with my performances but I was particularly cheesed off after Soliman. My trainers did their job to a tee and if I'd done mine I would have taken him out inside five rounds and I don't know why I didn't. I wouldn't even say he was one of the better kids I'd fought. It's just the timing wasn't right for Howard Eastman to shine. BM: Whilst your management are to be commended for steering you to the WBA mandatory challenger's slot, there aren't too many notables on your victim list. Have you received sufficient preparation to challenge successfully at world level? HE: Firstly, I have to stress that when Howard Eastman performs, talented guys don't look good against me. The press will then say they're not that good but it's usually because I make them that way. Believe me Sam Soliman would look a million bucks against a Ryan Rhodes, Jason Matthews or Adrian Dodson. He'd run rings around them. It's just that I'm a different kettle of fish. It's a fact that Howard Eastman hasn't been pushed in any of his fights yet. No disrespect to the opposition but I can get bored when I'm not stretched and drop to their level. But in the long term that may be a blessing in disguise. I'm fully aware of what I'm capable of producing but my future opponents aren't. Some of my contests have been little more than public sparring sessions but I'm unbeaten in 30 fights and, to me, that's ample preparation for the world title. It will be no problem. BM: Ultimately who is culpable for the undemanding level of competition you've encountered? HE: Well, the only fight I ever recall turning down personally was against Adrian Dodson. Style-wise it just didn't motivate me and victory wouldn't have assisted me in any way, shape or form. So you'll have to ask my management why they don't seem to get me the right matches. I suppose I have to hand it to Frank Maloney and Panix for keeping me busy, but I'd have preferred to have been active against the right opponents. It's two different things. Stiffer competition would certainly have elevated me to a world title fight quicker. At the end of the day, the matchmakers make the matches, not the fighters. BM: Despite a 90% knockout ratio and the almost Eubankesque mystique that surrounds your personality, thus far the boxing public have responded to Howard Eastman with astonishing indifference. How do you explain your inability to draw at the box office? HE: For some reason I don't appear to be the media's cup of tea, which doesn't help, but as far as I'm concerned my job is to fight. I need to be put in the right fights at the right venues. At present I'm getting shifted from city to city every three to four months. No continuity. My profile would have been heightened by some good domestic matches as I was coming through the rankings. Without being disrespectful I never saw anything interesting in fighting guys like Jason Matthews and Ryan Rhodes, though others seemed to rate them highly. The guys I really wanted to get my hands on were Robert McCracken and Adrian Dodson, who were really kicking two or three years back. But it wasn't happening. For whatever reasons the managers, promoters and matchmakers refused to give me a look in. BM: You finally seemed poised to explode to prominence with a high profile British championship challenge to Bristol's Glenn Catley in mid 1998. It must have been frustrating when Catley abdicated and left you to debate the vacant title in a low key clash with Salford's 37 year old Steve Foster. HE: Again people assume Steve Foster was an easy fight but it wasn't. Foster was a real veteran, which doesn't mean old and washed up but experienced, difficult to deal with and very dangerous. He'd have given a lot of good middleweights a run for their money and personally I believe he'd have whupped Glenn Catley. It's only because of who I am that I could take care of him in such a way. My ability was a different scale to him. The same would have happened to Catley without a doubt. BM: When your contracts expired early last year [2000], I understand you contemplated a shift to Rodney Berman's Golden Fists outfit prior to eventually resigning with Maloney and Panix. HE: I was pissed off with the way my career was going and think I had every right to be. Like any human being who is unhappy in their job, you want to go somewhere else. But it's changed itself around lately, hopefully for the good. BM: Having shown commendable patience and loyalty to Maloney and Panix, their recent split must be causing you some anxiety. HE: One minute they're so tight wind cannot pass through them, next minute a hurricane blasts right through the middle. It just shows that nothing stays the same in life. I love Frank, I love Panos [Eliades, head of Panix Promotions] and on a day to day basis I pray that whatever happened between them does not conflict negatively towards my career because I'm stuck right in the middle. BM: What do you consider has been your best win to date? HE: My best wins have definitely been outside the ring. Getting through the everyday struggles in life and overcoming the invisible obstacles that confront talented fighters in Britain. It's a known fact in boxing that Howard Eastman has been held back. I've been forced to sit by watching other fighters who I know haven't got close to the skills or record I've got, get their opportunities ahead of me. Several other boxers are in the same boat. We don't know why but who do we talk to? Were just the boxers. My mentor, Tony Mancini [his first trainer who passed away in June 1995], was a very clever man and on his death bed he told me: 'Howard, be patient.' Back then I didn't understand. But he knew that because of the talent I've got I'd have a hard time. BM: OK, your best ring performance? HE: I really love my first title win against Sven Hamer for the Southern Area [TKO10, Dec '96]. It was a very hard fight but Gilbert Jackson, a fantastic box-puncher, brought me through with some fabulous [sparring] encounters at the Henry Cooper gym. My preparation was spot on and I went out and really did the business. BM: You've proclaimed loud and long that you are the best middleweight in the world. What particular qualities make Howard Eastman so convinced he's capable of collecting one of the key belts? HE: Obviously I can finish. People rave about all the knockouts, but sometimes you don't have to put full power into punches, it's more a case of the angles with which you connect. But above all my greatest strength is that I overcome every single obstacle put in front of me. In my head, I know exactly what it takes to be successful in that ring. I've studied how the great champions lived and trained. It's really fascinating and when I'm world champion, I'll write a book about it. Even when I've not got a fight lined up I still train twice a day. Boxing isn't something you can teach someone in a year. To master it you have to do it repetitiously, like spelling you name. That way you don't need to think. Everything rolls naturally. BM: You turned 30 in December. Any concerns that your prime years could be withering away before you? HE: I was very gifted at a young age and sincerely believe I had the ability to beat a lot of good champions simply with my hunger and talent when I was 25, 26. Because I've been held back the hunger still burns. But I'm so much more mature now. I've trained with so many world class trainers who perhaps haven't enjoyed exposure with top fighters. I know so many styles, and I've mastered them all. All the delays have done is allow Howard Eastman to add yet more strings to his bow. That makes me very dangerous to any middleweight out there. BM: How have you managed to retain you focus through all the procrastinating? HE: It's not hard when you live in a council flat next to Deptford Market! I have a five year old son, Troy, and though I'm not with his mother anymore, my goal is to accomplish enough money so that he doesn't have to endure what I went through when I was growing up. I'm like a kid waiting for my present. It's got to the stage where if my promoters tell me I've a world title date in a month or two's time, I'll go and prepare but even the night of the fight I'll be sceptical about whether it's going to happen. Punch me after I win the world title! BM: Now that you've been nominated the WBA's No. 1 challenger it appears your overdue world title chance should materialise against William Joppy some time in 2001. Promises to be lively. Home advantage could be the key. HE: I've never seen any of Joppy's fights, I just know that I'm lined up to fight him. Of course I'd be prepared to travel, but if I had a choice the fight would be in England so the home fans, who are yet to see me in a decent fight, can really see me perform. Today there's too many other middleweights out there calling themselves world champion who just don't have what it takes. Ideally, there should be just one undisputed champion and I'm that person. I intend collecting every single belt and delivering them back to Britain because I genuinely feel I'm the greatest middleweight in the world right now. But in order to prove this, the battles have to take place in the ring. Talking is so cheap. |
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