Chris Eubank Jr was once knocked out of the ring in sparring by ‘monster’ Cuban heavyweight who fought Anthony Joshua, but he refused to quit

Chris Eubank Jr has revealed that he was once knocked out of the ring by a Cuban heavyweight in a relentless sparring session.

The British middleweight contender travelled to the country as an amateur to gain experience and surprisingly found himself exchanging punches with Erislandy Savon.

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Savon, now an amateur world champion and Olympic bronze medallist, was Cuba's hottest heavyweight prospect at the time.

In 2012, Savon faced Anthony Joshua at the London Olympics and many felt he was very unfortunate not to come away with a victory over the Brit, who then went on to win the gold medal at home.

Discussing his mental strength, Eubank Jr recalled on : "There's one time where I was close to giving up, one time.

"I went to Cuba before I turned pro.

"Out there they have the Olympians and their Olympic training is second to none, these guys are animals, they're monsters.

"In Cuba they have this thing called technical sparring, which I had never done.

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"Technical sparring is basically you're not sparring to hurt the guy, you're sparring to work on technique.

"The Cuban Olympic heavyweight representative walks up the stairs and gets into the ring.

"I thought he was coming into the ring to shadow box and warm up for his sparring session with somebody else.

"They said, 'No, no, you guys are gonna spar.'

"I was like, 'He's about three times the size of me, what do you mean?'

"They said, 'Yeah, it's okay, he'll work with you, technical sparring.'

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"First bell goes, this guy sprints over to me and just starts laying into me, the biggest shots, bang, bang, bang.

"I'm moving out the way, dodging, running around the ring and he's just coming. I can't get this guy off of me.

"He knocks me out of the ring.

"He punches me, I fall down, it's like a three or four foot drop onto concrete.

";My knee hits the concrete, my leg goes dead.

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"This is in the second round that this happened. I still have one more round.

"I'm getting up, leg's completely gone, looking up and this heavyweight's leaning over the ropes, looking down at me.

"And I have a decision to make - do I get back in or do I say, 'Listen, my knee's bad, you're too big, I've got a concussion, let me just take a break.'

"So I'm sitting there, looking around, everybody's looking at me - my dad's there.

"I was like, 'You know what? Let's f***ing go. Let's go.'

"I walk back up knowing what I was about to receive as soon as I got back in the ring, and that's exactly what happened.

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"He just starts laying into me again for another two rounds.

"But my whole thing was - I have to finish the three rounds.

"Why? Because I said I would spar him three rounds.

"I'm not leaving this gym with everybody knowing that I quit.

"I couldn't live with myself.

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"So I got back into that ring and took my beating like a man.

"And from that day on, I was never scared again."