by Matthew Martino
Essex entrepreneur and charity activist Lee Eaton has always had a heart for boxing, in a candid sit down he discusses future plans and the much anticipated Tommy Robinson bout!
Q. Tell our readers who is Lee Eaton?
I am just an ordinary family man who loves his family and boxing and love helping others including lots of charity work.
Q. As someone who has been in boxing all these years, how does the sport make you feel?
Boxing is my passion. I’ve always loved the sport – I started at a local amateur gym when I was 11 for about a year, then that was it for me. I remember doing a few rounds with the punching dummy and a few spars with another young boxer, but sadly I lost interest. After that become a fan rather than trying to be a fighter (was useless anyway), but proper started to love the game when I was 18-19 when I was going to watch one of my best mates John Wayne Hibbert fight – then when he turnt professional I supported Him at every fight went to the gym with him and properly got my head into the game and we had some great nights along the way normally ending up with sore heads the next morning!
I just love absolutely everything about this classic sport, including betting on boxing events with my friends.
Q. You started EBA Boxing – what does that do?
Basically a friend of my mine Ben Adair died from a freak accident in may 2012 (miss him massively and but got a lot to thank him for due to my career being created in his memory and I’ll never forgot him) and the last conversation we had was about going to watch wayne box, so I wanted to do something in memory of him so I organised a charity boxing event for may 2013 BEN ADAIR MEMORIAL SHOW well surprisingly it went so well we sold the whole show out and had about 10 fights and raised just shy of £10,000 for little haven children’s hospice (Bens mums choice of charity) and after the show was such a big success I sat down and thought I done alright there why not do another show and see if I can make a bit of money for my self – so I sat down and organised the first EBA show September 6th 2013 THE EBA PRIZEFIGHTER and after a lot of headache and learning on the way another sold out show (still to this day one of my best shows I’ve promoted), and basically it took off from there, we put on 2-3 charity shows a year and do a couple of other shows also – we have raised over £75,000 for charity’s and local people needing help etc and we ain’t stopping there.
I will be boxing my self on September 30th for AMELIA MAE FOUNDATION & KARIS DARLING FOUNDATION I’m not no fighter but I was 16 and half stone massively overweight so signed up to fight in September and I’m already nearly 2 and half stone down and feeling good to go, EBA boxing is getting busier by the day we run very professional shows with a good production and all our shows are sanctioned by the IKF/IAB a world governing body so are run to very high standards anybody wanting to get involved get in touch with EBA manager Tracy Scopes or on EBA Boxing’s facebook page.
Q. You are arranging a charity boxing event in Essex – what can you tell us?
Yes basically I’m an ambassador for the AMELIA MAE FOUNDATION a children’s cancer charity which help kids and families battling NEUROBLASTOMA and we was at a charity ball on 1st September and some how it’s been arranged that I will be boxing the legend TOMMY ROBINSON on a date in December tbc looking like December 3rd but gotta sort out few logistics – it’s a great high profile for the charity – we are both ambassadors for AMF and we will be looking to raise stack loads of money to send 3 kids battling NEUROBLASTOMA on holiday – possibly Disney land Paris – if we can put a smile on the kids faces who are battling this evil disease it’s worth getting a few black eye for ? Www.justgiving.com/fundraising/leeeatonto donate to mine and Tommy’s just giving for our fight.
Q. Whats on the cards for 2018?
2018 is Where I take the leap into professional boxing and my trusted team including my wife and Tracy Scopes take EBA Boxing to the next level, plus plenty more charity work as 8 of us including tommy will be walking the GREAT WALL OF CHINA in aid of AMF ?
