Harlem Eubank and Roman Fury Win With Panache in Brighton

A Eubank and a Fury were on display on a Wasserman Boxing card in the English seaside resort city of Brighton tonight. They were not the most prominent members of their respective families, but both did their lineage proud.

Harlem Eubank, the nephew of British boxing legend Chris Eubank Sr, stepped up in class and passed the test with flying colors, stopping Germany’s Timo Schwarzkopf in the 11^th-round. The Brighton junior welterweight advanced his record to 19-0 (8 KOs).

Eubank knocked Schwarzkopf to the canvas in the third round with a hard right hand. Schwarzkopf was in dire straits but survived the round and lasted into the 11^th when Eubank caught him with a right hook that put him on the canvas once again. He managed to get to his feet, but the referee deemed him unfit to continue and waived the match off. Heading in, Schwarzkopf, born Festim Kryeziu in Kosovo, was 22-5 and had never been stopped.

The bout was in the same arena where Chris Eubank successfully defended his WBO middleweight title in 1991 with a 10-round technical decision in a foul-filled bout with Canada’s Dan Sherry. Eubank was in attendance tonight. He walked Harlem into the ring and used the occasion to chum the water for a fight between a Eubank, his namesake son or his nephew, and Conor Benn, who returned to the ring in September in Orlando, Florida, but remains on the outs with the British Boxing Board of Control. Harlem called out Benn in his post-fight interview.

Harlem Eubank is the son of Chris’s brother Simon Eubank, a former journeyman junior-welterweight who sadly passed away in September at age 61 after a five-year battle with dementia.

Fury

Roman Fury’s slated four-rounder with sacrificial lamb Bradley Davies was both the walkout fight and a co-feature of sorts. The younger brother of Tyson Fury, and the ninth member of the Gypsy King’s extended family to take up the sport of boxing, Roman, a cruiserweight, entered the pro ranks without any amateur experience, and is now 3-0 after halting Davies in the third round while registering his first knockout. Tyson wasn’t in attendance, but their colorful father John Fury was there, as was Roman’s half-brother Tommy Fury, the TV reality show star who became the first boxer to defeat Jake Paul.

Other Bouts of Note

London’s Lerrone Richards, competing as a light heavyweight, outpointed Mickey Ellison, winning seven of the eight rounds on the referee’s card. It was a typical performance by Richards (18-0, 4 KOs), a master technician, which is another way of saying that he is not a crowd-pleaser.

A stablemate of IBF world flyweight champion Sunny Edwards, another slickster, Richards was making his first fight under the Wasserman umbrella after an association with Matchroom. He won a fringe world title in December of 2021 with a split decision over previously undefeated Carlos Gongora, but that title, garnered at 168, wasn’t at stake tonight. We saw Mickey Ellison two months ago in Plant City, Florida where he was stopped in eight rounds by “Hot Rod” Kalajdzic. His setback to Lerrone Richards reduced his record to 14-6.

Heavyweight Tommy Welch, a local fan favorite, improved to 12-0 (7 KOs) with a fourth-round stoppage of crude Argentina import Jonathan Exequiel Vergara (5-1) who was on the canvas four times before the mismatch was terminated. Welch is the son of Scott Welch, a noted heavyweight of the 1990s who “fought” Brad Pitt in the bare-knuckle-themed movie “Snatch.”

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE