Four Kings: Review | Counter fire

This documentary series about four great black British boxers contains some powerful insights but needs more focus on its subjects’ experiences of racism, argues Jamal Elaheebocus

October 1993 was the biggest week in British boxing history. It was the climax of the rise of four black British boxing legends, which had created fierce rivalries and poisonous discourse. All four boxers suffered from racism throughout their careers, and several struggled with their mental health after retirement. Four kingsAmazon’s premium documentary series, is an intimate and deeply moving portrayal of the careers and lives of these four boxers: Frank Bruno, Lennox Lewis, Chris Eubank and Nigel Benn.

Combining interviews with the four boxers and previous footage of interviews, training and the fights, it is a very honest appreciation of both the remarkable talent of these athletes and the brutality and life-threatening danger of the sport they love. It is at its strongest in the final two episodes, which begin with Frank Bruno’s defeat of Lennox Lewis for the WBC Heavyweight Championship. This is shortly followed by a draw between Nigel Benn and Chris Eubank in their rematch for the WBC and WBO super middleweight titles.

From there, the documentary charts the end of three careers in quick succession, Frank Bruno, Nigel Benn and Chris Eubank, and their subsequent mental and physical struggles. Perhaps the most moving is Frank Bruno, who was haunted throughout his career by claims from both Lennox Lewis and subsequently Oliver McCall that he was an ‘Uncle Tom’ and had betrayed the black community.

Bruno was not entirely guiltless, having featured in an HP ad as Man Friday to a white Robinson Crusoe. However, he never got over these allegations and even after becoming the WBC heavyweight champion, he still defended himself. After his retirement shortly afterwards, his mental health declined rapidly before he was sectioned in a psychiatric hospital and diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

Benn and Eubank also describe their struggles with mental health, including Benn’s diagnosis of bipolar like Bruno. One of the most moving scenes involves Eubank and former boxer Michael Watson, who was knocked out by Eubank in a rematch for the WBO title. The blow left Watson unconscious on the floor, with no medics in the arena to help him. He ended up in a coma for forty days and had six operations to remove blood clots from his brain.

Over the years, Watson learned to walk, hear and speak again, but is still disabled. When Eubank visits Watson at his home, he breaks down in tears and asks for Watson’s forgiveness, which Watson readily grants, assuring Eubank that he does not blame him for what happened.

Boxing’s damage and society’s racism

Eubank is understandably deeply affected by what happened, and the scene shows the mental toll the sport takes on its athletes, as well as the life-threatening risks it poses. When Nigel Benn slipped and headbutted Gerald McClellan in a fight in ’95, the boxer was in a coma for two weeks and to this day has problems with hearing, memory and mobility.

Bruno’s career was also put in serious jeopardy. In a fight with Mike Tyson, he suffered a detached retina that could have blinded him and had to take time away from the sport. And at the very end of the series, it is revealed that his brain is in slow decline as a result of the many years of blows to the head.

It seriously questions how boxing as a sport can be justified when it has such life-changing and potentially life-ending effects. Many obviously love the sport and care deeply about it, and many of us who are not involved in the sport can still appreciate and enjoy watching the incredible talent of these athletes. However, the series raises serious questions: At what point is the risk too great? And why aren’t boxing’s governing bodies taking extra measures to mitigate these risks?

The element where the documentary is missing is the political atmosphere surrounding these boxers’ careers and the racism they face. There are brief mentions of all four boxers being children of Windrush generation parents and how they faced racism, but it is given too little time, especially given that Benn’s brother was killed in a racist attack at age of seventeen.

And more generally, the victims of boxing’s brutality are very often black men, from Watson to McClellan and Bruno to Benn. After Benn and Eubank’s rematch, coins and beer cans were thrown at them from the crowd. Given that these boxers’ careers spanned the mid-to-late 80s and 90s, and the rise of GDP during that time, there should have been a greater focus on the racism experienced personally and professionally.

Despite this drawback, it is still an insightful and powerful look at the lives of some of British boxing’s most influential and pioneering characters.