{"id":186997,"date":"2025-10-09T02:38:18","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T02:38:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/186997\/"},"modified":"2025-10-09T02:38:18","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T02:38:18","slug":"meet-boxer-who-made-steve-collins-cry-and-was-two-minutes-away-from-beating-chris-eubank","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/186997\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet boxer who made Steve Collins cry and was ‘two minutes away from beating Chris Eubank’"},"content":{"rendered":"

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<\/p>\n

Matt Bozeat and Neil Docking<\/p>\n

14:25, 08 Oct 2025<\/p>\n

\"SamSam Storey believed he was minutes away from beating Chris Eubank(Image: Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Sam Storey is happily telling all about fighting Chris Eubank<\/a> and Steve Collins<\/a> and winning the Lonsdale Belt<\/a> outright \u2013 and then there\u2019s a knock on the door and he has to go.<\/p>\n

There are hundreds of boxers<\/a> on the other side. Where is Storey now? He\u2019s in Spain \u2013 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cEngland, Scotland, Wales and Ireland are always well represented,\u201d he says. \u201cWe 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<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Storey, you imagine, gets asked a lot of questions. \u201cPeople ask me what age did I start boxing,\u201d he says. \u201cI was born into it. Our house was a couple of minutes away from dad\u2019s 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: \u2018Football is too dangerous.\u2019 I started winning and kept going.\u201d<\/p>\n

Boxing looked dangerous when Australia came to Belfast for an amateur international in 1985. \u201cI 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]?\u201d remembers Storey, now 62.<\/p>\n

Sam Storey pictured in 2016<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 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, \u2018you\u2019ll be fine\u2019 \u2013 and he was right. He [Harding] was a big, strong guy and I didn\u2019t stay in the pocket with him. I outboxed him and gave him a standing count in the last.\u201d<\/p>\n

Storey\u2019s amateur career peaked at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. \u201cI broke my thumb five and a half weeks out and then I was drawn against a top Italian [World Cup<\/a> silver medalist Romolo Casamonica]. The first two rounds, it was easy \u2013 I was way in front. Halfway through the third I was running out of steam because of a lack of fitness.<\/p>\n

“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.\u201d<\/p>\n

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. \u201cI outboxed him, no problem,\u201d says Storey. I haven\u2019t read it, but I hear Steve wrote in his book that he\u2019s only cried three times in his life and one of them was after I beat him in the Irish final.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"BoxingBoxing legend Steve Collins admitted Sam Storey made him cry(Image: ExpressStar)<\/p>\n

This article was originally published in BOXING NEWS, the world\u2019s oldest boxing magazine and the longest-running sports weekly. Published every Thursday, it offers unrivalled coverage of the sweet science. Buy it now here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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. \u201cThe preparation didn\u2019t go well,\u201d says Storey. \u201cI got a cut eye and I was struggling to make middleweight.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Storey had hopes of meeting Collins again for a bigger prize. \u201cWhen he was world champion, I had him on the phone and said to him: \u2018Let\u2019s do it,\u2019\u201d says Storey. “He didn\u2019t want to know. He has said he didn\u2019t have any problem with southpaws, but he did and I know it. We were sparring partners for years.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would have been a huge fight, two Irishmen fighting for the world title, and if I saw him now I would say: \u2018You should have given me a shot.’ I saw an interview where he said he didn\u2019t give me a shot because I had been knocked out by Chris Eubank<\/a>. I wasn\u2019t knocked out \u2013 I had a broken ankle.\u201d<\/p>\n

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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,\u201d says Storey, \u201cbut I will never forget the first clinch. \u201cIt was like hitting a brick wall!<\/p>\n

“I thought to myself: \u2018This will change\u2019 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

The celebrations proved to be premature. \u201cEubank being Eubank, he hit me on the chin with a right [in the sixth round] and I went down,\u201d says Storey. \u201cWithin 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.<\/p>\n

\"SamSam Storey says Chris Eubank later apologised for what he wrote about him in his book(Image: Getty Images)<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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\u2019t hurt a fly, but I couldn\u2019t keep him off.<\/p>\n

“He rang me a while ago. My friend met him and told him I wasn\u2019t happy with him. In his book, he said he saw fear in my eyes. I said, \u2018fear in my eyes?\u2019, and he apologised.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

“James was very slick,\u201d 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\u2019s No.1 for a long time after that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Belfast'sBelfast’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)<\/p>\n

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: \u201cJames was in his corner. James told me afterwards: \u2018I thought you were done and then you come out and put on a performance like that.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI heard Ali didn\u2019t 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: \u2018I have made a fortune betting on you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Storey finished after losses to Henry Wharton and David Starie left him with a 25-6 record. \u201cMaking 12 stones [168lbs] murdered me,\u201d he says. “I moved to Spain 18 years ago when my kids [Fionn and Blossom] were two and six. My wife\u2019s friends\u2019 boyfriends found out my background and asked me to train them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t be bothered. My wife [Lisa] said: \u2018Six of them want coaching\u2019 and I started working with them in my back garden. Six went to 10 and then to 12 and 15. I thought: \u2018Maybe I should open a gym\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article was originally published in BOXING NEWS, the world\u2019s oldest boxing magazine and the longest-running sports weekly. Published every Thursday, it offers unrivalled coverage of the sweet science. Buy it now here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former British super middleweight champion Sam Storey went toe-to-toe with boxing legends Chris Eubank and Steve Collins –…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":186998,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,2864,5905,101,56,54,55,6526],"class_list":{"0":"post-186997","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-family","10":"tag-olympics","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom","15":"tag-world-cup"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}