Michael Watson

One tragic example is Michael Watson, the middleweight boxer whose life hung in the balance on a grim night at White Hart Lane, 20 years ago this week. For all his superhuman efforts to rehabilitate himself, Watson s body will never fully recover from the brain injury he suffered at the hands of Chris Eubank. Yet this is more than just a tough luck story. The hardship of the past two decades has purified Watson s spirit, to the point where, today, he is the nearest thing we have to a sporting saint. The facts of the case will be familiar to anyone who remembers boxing in the late 1980s and early 1990s the period when Eubank, Nigel Benn and Frank Bruno were regularly drawing audiences in excess of 10 million to ITV. On the night in question, Watson was dominating Eubank, forcing him to his knees in the 11th round of their World Boxing Organisation title fight.

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