It was Don King who said that in boxing "everything you hear is a lie", while another promoter, Bob Arum, once said, "yesterday I was lying, today I'm telling the truth". Boxing is not a simple sport. When WBO super middleweight champion Steve Collins announced his retirement on Thursday evening at an awards ceremony in London, he was not lying, but it was difficult not to discount the fact that he was playing the boxing game - taking a count of nine.
"I can tell you for sure, he'll be back," said Joe Calzaghe, the fighter Collins was due to meet next Saturday. Calzaghe is not alone in his contention that Ireland's world champion has still too much to gain from a body that is far from burnt out. He is not alone in thinking that Collins, who twice out-thought and, at times, out-spoke the eccentric Chris Eubank and Nigel Benn, says more than his prayers.
In his 39 bouts, since he first beat Julio Mercado in October 1986, when the referee stopped the fight after three rounds, Collins's raison d'etre has been relentlessly to chase the high ground he now inhabits. His publicity stunts, his occasional buffoonery, his selfless determination as a boxer, and his regular court battles with promoters and managers, have ensured that Collins, once in the public eye, has never been out of it.
His legal disputes have become legendary and already he has hinted that they could be the source of him reversing his decision to stay out of the ring.
In April 1993, he was in the Dublin Circuit Civil Court and ordered to pay £8,000 in fees to Drury Sports Management Ltd. The court was told that under an agreement, Drury were to receive a percentage of the fighter's purse from a number of fights between January 1991 and April 1992. They put Collins earnings during that period at £186,000.
Judge Smith said that Collins had fleetfootedly avoided service of the papers in the action and added: "If he is as quick on his feet as he has been in dealing with these proceedings, he should have some future as a boxer."
In 1995, nine days after successfully defending his WBO super middleweight title against Eubank in Cork, Collins was at a function in the Baggot Inn in Dublin and was approached by an admirer who requested his autograph. Collins complied. The admirer turned out to be a private detective, Joan Swaine, who was attempting to serve the boxer with a summons. Experienced in such matters, Collins immediately dropped the paper on to the floor and turned away.
Again he was being sought for money. Pasquale Petronelli, part of a management team that dealt with Collins in his early days in America, were claiming a £165,000 judgment previously awarded by a federal court in Boston.
Four days after Collins was supposed to face Calzaghe in Sheffield, the Irishman is again due to appear in the High Court in Dublin. He is being sued for £304,000 by boxing promoter Barry Hearn and Matchroom Boxing Ltd.
Hearn claims that the money is his percentage of the Irish boxer's return fight purse against Eubank. Hearn and his company are also claiming 25 per cent of all Warren-promoted fights won by Collins in his defences of the WBO world title up to May 1996, during which he alleges Collins was still tied to Matchroom Boxing Ltd. Collins lodged a full defence, but tried to get the hearing put off to another date. His counsel stated to Judge Declan Budd that to hold the proceedings four days after a world title fight "would be unjust to his client" as he would "have to interrupt his fight preparations to provide further instruction or have to apply his mind only hours after the fight to such important litigation". The proceedings will go ahead on October 15th.
No one can predict whether Collins will emerge from the sparring in the Four Courts as champ or chump and few people know exactly how much he has made throughout his long career. But clearly a lot of money is in the balance, money that was undeniably made the hard way since he narrowly lost to Mike McCallum in a WBA middleweight title fight in 1990.
That fight announced Collins's arrival as the genuine article, a respected boxer. Having gotten to that point by travelling the difficult road in America rather than Europe, it further hardened his reputation as a durable and capable professional.
But recognition was slow to follow and despite his private squabbles with promoters and managers, Collins only stepped into the public consciousness when he defeated Chris Pyatt in May of 1994 for the WBO middleweight title. Beating Chris Eubank the following March in Millstreet for the WBO super middleweight title further enhanced his profile, although there were some doubts as to whether the Celtic Warrior's image was as wholesome as the public would have liked.
The Eubank fights proved the defining moments of Collins's career, even though television did not immediately embrace him. RTE, particularly, studiously ignored the fact that there was an Irish world champion. Collins, it might be said, did not help himself. During his time in America, he had derided the Britishdominated WBO title as the Wicked Body Odour title.
However, the Eubank bout at Millstreet in 1995, followed by another in Cork in September of the same year, and his two fights against Nigel Benn in July and November of 1996, captured the public's imagination, not least of all for the spectacular insults that were exchanged in the run up to the first fight.
Ireland had not quite heard or seen anything like Eubank close up. He effectively attracted public opprobrium, then used it to enhance his drawing power. Reviled by the general public, they swarmed to watch him. Collins could only benefit - and he did.
Collins accused Eubank of "forgetting his African roots". An incensed Eubank told the Lord Mayor of Dublin, John Gormley, that he could "f . . . his city". Lovely stuff.
Collins then set about scrambling the brains of Eubank with his purported hypnotism. Playing on Eubank's tragic history of having almost killed Michael Watson in a previous fight, Collins's ploy was to have Eubank believe that, through hypnotism, he could become impervious to pain. The suggestion that Collins could become another Watson was too much for the English fighter to bear.
In a stream of consciousness after the bout, Collins ranted: "I had no doubts I was gonna win. Those people who did doubt me I forgive you. It's not their fault. Don't believe the hype. Believe the man Steve Collins. I'm not just the best Irish fighter ever, I'm the best pound for pound in the world. Roy Jones, he's next."
Antoine Byrd was Roy Jones's opponent on the same night in Pensacola, Florida. Byrd was the number one International Boxing Federation contender. Jones stopped him in two minutes and six seconds with a devastating flurry of blows that were as powerful as they were swift. Collins's only first-round stoppage was in 1987 in his fourth professional fight against Jim Holmes.
Not surprisingly, Jones and Eubank are again on the horizon, one more so than the other. A "one for the road" bout with Eubank appears to be as lucrative as it is soulless and craven. The public revulsion of Eubank would, however, ensure interest, which in itself presents itself as distasteful.
Jones is not interested which, in some respects, is a pity. Collins could have bowed out with dignity - having been beaten by a uniquely beautiful and devastating boxer. He would have gotten his deserved big pay day. He could have retired with no buts hanging over him. It would not have been a bad exit for a brave fighter.
