Former British super middleweight champion Sam Storey went toe-to-toe with boxing legends Chris Eubank and Steve Collins – earning an apology from one years after their world title fight
Matt Bozeat and Neil Docking
14:25, 08 Oct 2025
Sam Storey believed he was minutes away from beating Chris Eubank(Image: Getty Images)
Sam Storey is happily telling all about fighting Chris Eubank and Steve Collins and winning the Lonsdale Belt outright – and then there’s a knock on the door and he has to go.
There are hundreds of boxers on the other side. Where is Storey now? He’s in Spain – and, for one week of the year, he is busy. For the past 11 years, Storey has hired out a luxury hotel in Totana, turned the spacious function room into a gym and invited amateur boxers from all over Europe to go there for sparring.
“England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland are always well represented,” he says. “We have had the Dutch and German national teams and have also had Italians and the French squad. We have had pros here as well. There are five rings, eight bags and we do it all. We do the airport pickups; everything. The best part of the day is the evening when we are all sitting by the pool talking about boxing.”
Storey, you imagine, gets asked a lot of questions. “People ask me what age did I start boxing,” he says. “I was born into it. Our house was a couple of minutes away from dad’s gym [Holy Family] on New Lodge Road [in Belfast]. It was a babysitting service for my mum! Growing up, I loved playing football and once I started boxing, Dad said: ‘Football is too dangerous.’ I started winning and kept going.”
Boxing looked dangerous when Australia came to Belfast for an amateur international in 1985. “I was going pro and dad [Gerry] told me an Australian team was coming over for a couple of matches and would I have my last amateur on a dinner show at the Europa [Hotel]?” remembers Storey, now 62.
Sam Storey pictured in 2016
“The first match was in Derry and [opponent] Jeff Harding was 22-0 with 22 knockouts. In the first round he banged his kid out and me and mum looked at each other. Dad said, ‘you’ll be fine’ – and he was right. He [Harding] was a big, strong guy and I didn’t stay in the pocket with him. I outboxed him and gave him a standing count in the last.”
Storey’s amateur career peaked at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. “I broke my thumb five and a half weeks out and then I was drawn against a top Italian [World Cup silver medalist Romolo Casamonica]. The first two rounds, it was easy – I was way in front. Halfway through the third I was running out of steam because of a lack of fitness.
“Once I broke my thumb, the next time I pulled a glove on was at the Olympics. I decided to go to the European Seniors [in Budapest in 1985] and I got drawn against a Hungarian [Zoltan Fuzessy] who tapped and moved, so I went pro.”
And this is where he renewed his rivalry with Steve Collins. In the amateur ranks, they faced each other in the 1985 Irish Championship final. “I outboxed him, no problem,” says Storey. I haven’t read it, but I hear Steve wrote in his book that he’s only cried three times in his life and one of them was after I beat him in the Irish final.”
Boxing legend Steve Collins admitted Sam Storey made him cry(Image: ExpressStar)
This article was originally published in BOXING NEWS, the world’s oldest boxing magazine and the longest-running sports weekly. Published every Thursday, it offers unrivalled coverage of the sweet science. Buy it now here.
The Irish middleweight championship was the prize when the met in the pros in Boston three years later. Storey was 8-0, Collins 7-0, and Collins won on points over 10 rounds. “The preparation didn’t go well,” says Storey. “I got a cut eye and I was struggling to make middleweight.
“If I had the preparation Collins had with all the sparring he was getting at the Petronellis gym, I would have sorted him out in two or three rounds. Instead, it was a narrow points decision.”
Storey had hopes of meeting Collins again for a bigger prize. “When he was world champion, I had him on the phone and said to him: ‘Let’s do it,’” says Storey. “He didn’t want to know. He has said he didn’t have any problem with southpaws, but he did and I know it. We were sparring partners for years.
“It would have been a huge fight, two Irishmen fighting for the world title, and if I saw him now I would say: ‘You should have given me a shot.’ I saw an interview where he said he didn’t give me a shot because I had been knocked out by Chris Eubank. I wasn’t knocked out – I had a broken ankle.”
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Storey believes he was only two minutes away from taking the WBO super-middleweight belt off Eubank when he challenged him in Cardiff in August 1994. I was prepared for it to be hard in the clinch,” says Storey, “but I will never forget the first clinch. “It was like hitting a brick wall!
“I thought to myself: ‘This will change’ and in the fourth, he was spent. We clinched and he had weakened. He hit me with four soft punches, I hit him with a right hook, he backed off and I could see the open-top bus driving around Belfast! I knew he brought the weight down too fast and was starting to huff and blow.”
The celebrations proved to be premature. “Eubank being Eubank, he hit me on the chin with a right [in the sixth round] and I went down,” says Storey. “Within three seconds, my head was clear, but my ankle was very, very sore. He pushed me on to my back leg and the pain was too much.
Sam Storey says Chris Eubank later apologised for what he wrote about him in his book(Image: Getty Images)
“I saw the round through and my corner wanted to pull me out, but I thought he was finished. I thought he was done. I thought I was two minutes away. He came at me in the seventh with a load of punches that wouldn’t hurt a fly, but I couldn’t keep him off.
“He rang me a while ago. My friend met him and told him I wasn’t happy with him. In his book, he said he saw fear in my eyes. I said, ‘fear in my eyes?’, and he apologised.”
In September 1989, Storey made history by outpointing Paul Burke in the first contest for the British super-middleweight championship. He made a successful defence against Noel Magee in an all-Belfast dust-up before the belt was lost to the late James Cook.
“James was very slick,” says Storey. “He got the first couple of rounds, but come the 10th it was level and I was getting strong and confident. He hit me with a right uppercut and bingo! He took me out. He was Europe’s No.1 for a long time after that.”
Belfast’s Sam Storey celebrates with his Lonsdale Belt after regaining the British Super middleweight title from Ali Forbes at York Hall, Bethnal Green(Image: PA)
Storey and Cook were in opposite corners again when the Belfastman bid to regain the 168lbs title and win the Lonsdale Belt outright. He challenged Ali Forbes at the York Hall in April 1995 and Storey said: “James was in his corner. James told me afterwards: ‘I thought you were done and then you come out and put on a performance like that.’
“I heard Ali didn’t talk to James for years after that! The York Hall was full of Irish. I had never seen anything like it. At the end, it went nuts and a lot of people told me: ‘I have made a fortune betting on you.’”
Storey finished after losses to Henry Wharton and David Starie left him with a 25-6 record. “Making 12 stones [168lbs] murdered me,” he says. “I moved to Spain 18 years ago when my kids [Fionn and Blossom] were two and six. My wife’s friends’ boyfriends found out my background and asked me to train them.
“I couldn’t be bothered. My wife [Lisa] said: ‘Six of them want coaching’ and I started working with them in my back garden. Six went to 10 and then to 12 and 15. I thought: ‘Maybe I should open a gym’.”
This article was originally published in BOXING NEWS, the world’s oldest boxing magazine and the longest-running sports weekly. Published every Thursday, it offers unrivalled coverage of the sweet science. Buy it now here.