Less than a week after masterminding
Terence Crawford’s brilliant victory over Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez in their undisputed super middleweight title fight in Las Vegas, Brian ‘BoMac’ McIntyre found himself at a press conference in London.
The Ring's 2023 Trainer of the Yer was seated alongside his fighter, Chris Eubank Jr, who, on November 15,
will rematch Conor Benn at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. The 12-round middleweight fight will be streamed exclusively by
DAZN.
This isn’t the first time the two have worked together. Back in September 2023, McIntyre prepared
Eubank for his rematch with Liam Smith.
Having been stopped by the Liverpudlian in the fourth round of their first fight, Eubank produced one of the best performances of his career to turn the tables and score a tenth round victory.
Although Eubank (35-3, 25 KOs) won the first fight with
Benn (23-1, 14 KOS), he admitted that the Londoner’s performance took him by surprise. Recruiting McIntyre to devise a gameplan and improve his performance is as sure a sign as any that he is taking the return extremely seriously.
During an appearance on TalkBoxing, McIntyre revealed that only scheduling issues prevented them from working together ahead of
Eubank's first fight with Benn and that he has a pretty good idea as to why the 36-year-old trusts him.
“You know, that's a good question and the only thing I could think of is because, probably, I'm the best,” McIntyre said.
“We had a great camp and we had a great fight the last fight that we was together against Liam and everything went smooth during camp. Outside the gym, inside the gym, everything went smooth.”
McIntyre’s ongoing success will inevitably persuade fighters from all around the world that he is the man to unlock their true potential.
Although Eubank's conditioning and commitment have never been in question, there has long been a perception that he chooses if and when to listen to his cornermen and that his aversion to building a long term, ongoing relationship with a trainer has held him back.
McIntyre insists that once he got to know Eubank, he found him to be a quiet, diligent worker and that he saw no evidence that he can be difficult to work with.
“No. No. I don't get that from Chris,” he said.
“Any fighter that I work with, I sit them down and tell them what I expect out of them. That’s the first thing we did when we first had the first fight together and he went right along with it and we just picked up where we left off at this time.”
McIntyre has seen the exciting first fight between Eubank and Benn.
There were times when Eubank was able to slow down the pace of the fight and box well behind his jab but, eventually, he was forced to rely on heart, grit and courage.
Only Eubank will know whether or not the hostile build-up and entirely unique set of circumstances that surrounded the event affected him or whether Benn’s aggression and desire dragged him out of his preferred state.
Whatever the reason, he certainly didn’t employ the cold, calculating, considered style that has brought McIntyre’s fighters such success.
Unsurprisingly, McIntryre would have advised Eubank to adopt a different approach.
“Yeah, I would have. I would have approached it a little bit different,” he said.
As for exactly what he would change, McIntyre was predictably tight lipped.
“I can’t tell you that."