Chris Eubank Jr secures unanimous points victory to leave James DeGale on the brink of retirement

The blood-curdling climatic rounds of this all-British grudge match confirmed that, while James DeGale’s decade-long professional boxing career looks to be over, he may yet be able to find future employment as a seer. On an artfully dishevelled television set he had gravely declared this contest to be a ‘retirement fight’ and so it proved, the final curtain yanked down by a man he had dismissed and derided since an ill-tempered sparring session some seven years ago.

Back then, Chris Eubank Jr was being ardently proselytised as a future world champion and heir apparent to Floyd Mayweather’s gilded throne — if only by his own father. Courageous but cocksure, Eubank’s career has never come close to rising to such lofty heights, but this unanimous points decision is quite clearly his biggest victory yet, one which sees him inch slightly further out of his old man’s considerable shadow.

Previously, Eubank has been found wanting at the very highest level of the sport. But here he finally found the resolve to beat a genuinely top-tier opponent — winning on points but perhaps more importantly proving one. Armed with a new trainer, the little-known Nate Vasquez, he boxed perspicaciously for spells, countering effectively and working effectively behind his jab. Yes, there were periods where a wilting DeGale was still able to expose the coarseness of his technique, but Eubank was clearly on top from the moment he sent his opponent sprawling into the ropes in the second round.

The former super-middleweight champion of the world survived the count, only to touch the canvas again in the tenth, by which point he was clearly losing the fight. In the end, Eubank was to take a clear unanimous decision, with scores of 114-112, 115-112 and 117-109, to leave DeGale's storied career hanging in the balance.

“It was the most important fight of my career and I made a statement tonight,” Eubank said afterwards, as The O2’s jeers slowly but surely morphed into something resembling cheers. “The game plan worked. The things that we worked on in the gym worked and I dominated pretty much every single round. I knew he was going to come in here and run so I made sure that I worked a lot on my jab.”

Victory grants Eubank not only the IBO super-middleweight belt — a world title so crushingly pointless it may as well be printed on a Zimbabwean dollar bill — but the promise of plenty more big fights to come. Billy Joe Saunders wasted no time in mooting a rematch with the man he beat at middleweight in 2014, with Eubank quick to confirm at his truncated post-fight press conference that he would relish the chance to avenge the first defeat of his professional career.

DeGale, alas, has considerably less options on the table. A true revenant of British boxing, he was to find one final resurrection beyond his wearied grasp. Standing battered and bruised in a corner of the prize ring while Eubank’s claque postured and preened with their worthless green bauble, DeGale could not bring himself to make good on his solemn pre-fight promise.

“I’m pretty sure this is it,” he said, stood awkwardly next to Eubank. “I know that, if I call it a day, I have left my mark in boxing. So I have to go back and watch this because I did not do enough. I will go back and talk to my team.”

When he is able to find the mettle to watch this back-alley brawl back, the composed opening round may yet give him the misguided confidence to continue. The 33-year-old in fact started the better of the two fighters, moving comfortably, with his surgically repaired right arm landing the first two signifiant blows of the night. Not one, but two short jabs spat spitefully into Eubank’s face. His right eye immediately beginning to redden.

But this early success was not to last. DeGale’s first moment of misfortune in an anarchic second round was to accidentally clash heads with his rival, which clearly disorientated him. His second was to walk straight onto a Hail Mary right hand which sent him careering backwards into the ropes, his slick footwork and switch-hitting suddenly reduced to an unseemly, slovenly mess.

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Eubank followed up with a barrage of accurate head shots to force the count, DeGale’s mouth now lolling open like a drunk’s at the bar as he lost his balance in a neutral corner. Somehow he survived, only for Eubank to reassume his assault in the third, landing yet another big right hand upon the instruction of the sagacious Vasquez in his corner.

“Let your hands go!” the American urged his charge, shouting to be heard over as both Eubank Snr and Ronnie Davis yakked on, but DeGale dug in over the middle rounds and began to experience some success of his own, landing two big shots in the fifth and shading the seventh by switching stances and diligently jabbing. But just as he was beginning to claw his way back into contention, Eubank reasserted his own reconstructed jab and ended the eighth with a vicious flurry.

The attack sucked the life right out of DeGale, who entered the championship rounds hoping only to survive. It was as if Sisyphus, having finally rolled his blessed boulder to the top of the hill, had looked back to discover a fresh one waiting in its place.

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The tenth round confirmed what everybody ringside already knew: Eubank was on course to record the finest victory of his career. A left hook wobbled DeGale before another barrage floored him: his broken body flowing down to the canvas like water poured from a glass, every bone in his body rendered horribly limp. That he picked himself up and survived another two increasingly ragged rounds is testament both to his survival instinct and heart: there would have been few complaints had the contest been stopped.

As he collected his muddled thoughts afterwards, DeGale sounded as if he was attempting to convince himself that, yes, the time had come to call it a day. “I've been to the heights of boxing,” he insisted. “I've won an Olympic gold medal, won the world title twice, made history and I've boxed the best around the world, I have left my mark.”

Only a fool would argue otherwise. The great George Foreman once remarked that “the question isn’t at what age I want to retire — it’s at what income”. DeGale has his Olympic gold medal. He has his world title wins. He has his health and he his millions. After this, he would be wise to stay away, leaving Eubank to attempt to achieve in his future a small fraction of what DeGale has accomplished in his past.