Steve Collins Matchroom Boxing. Alongside him was Paul "Silky" Jones, his sparring partner and good friend who later went on to become WBO light-middleweight title holder. Collins was trained by Freddie King in the Romford training camp. In 1994, he won a world title by defeating Chris Pyatt by stoppage in five rounds to become the WBO middleweight champion. The following year he relinquished this title without a defence and was having difficulty making the weight. Again as a substitute he moved up to super-middleweight to challenge Chris Eubank for the WBO title after Eubank's scheduled opponent Ray Close withdrew after failing
Nigel Benn vs. Chris Eubank shared in the first half of the 1990s", and goes on to label the fights between the pair as "titanic clashes". On the ITV documentary 'Best Ever Big Fight Live', former world champion Duke McKenzie said of the Benn–Eubank rivalry: "It may never be rivalled". Barry McGuigan agreed, saying; "There was real antipathy and ill-will there. But what fights, what fights." The legacy of the feud was summed up with the first fight being shown, and given the moniker; "A war to end all wars". Nigel Benn vs. Chris Eubank Nigel Benn vs. Chris Eubank was a series of two