The First UK Internet Art Festival was never going to take the art world by storm

The First UK Internet Art Festival was never going to take the art world by storm. Anyone with a modem and phone line can tap into the Net.Multimedia: Mixing text, graphics, pictures, sound and other “media” in one computerised presentation.Virtual reality: a three-dimensional computer-generated “world”.World Wide Web/The Web: the most exciting part of the Internet, consisting of pages (mostly with graphics) covering a plethora of subjects. Cyber …: Anything to do with electronic information.
e-mail: Electronic mail sent from computer to computer.Download: Transfer data between computers.Internet or Net: A network of networks, theoretically linking 25 million computers worldwide. Bulletin board: computerised discussion group or information exchange.

But how ironic that this most honest of performers should have achieved his greatest success by a con job of a scale not seen since Cassius Clay famously went “berserk” at the weigh-in for his heavyweight title challenge against Sonny Liston, 31 years ago.. Such sacrifices are likely to pay off now and few would begrudge him a few decent six or even seven-figure pay cheques. But first, though, there is some serious celebrating to be done “I’ve a child almost a year old that I haven’t hardly seen yet,” he says. His eight-fight contract with Sky TV – always an absurdly ambitious schedule – allows him to have a 10-round contest before facing Collins in a re-match which may take place at Croke Park, Dublin, on 22 July.Collins is likely to make a quick voluntary defence in front of his hometown fans at the Point arena in Dublin in late May, probably against the European champion, Frederic Sailler of France. Eubank accepted defeat with a degree of grace and dignity which surprised many, andseemed almost relieved that the burden of British boxing’s longest unbeaten record had been lifted.

There was little textbook artistry about the challenger’s work, but he did what was necessary to win. Eubank was so unsettled by it that he genuinely wanted to pull out of the fight rather than face a man “who was not in control of himself”.John Rawling, the BBC’s respected boxing commentator, knows Eubank well and was the only media man present when the champion confronted Barry Hearn and Barney Eastwood, the show’s co-promoters, the night before the fight. He reported that Eubank was on the verge of tears as he struggled with the thought that what happened to Michael Watson might now happen to Collins, a man for whom he had genuine respect.While Eubank was tormenting himself, the supposedly hypnotised Collins was laughing all the way back from the weigh-in, in the knowledge that the damage he had done to the champion’s peace of mind was worth a three- round start.And so it transpired: Eubank took at least that long to get into the fight, and never at any stage looked at ease with the Irishman’s rugged, brawling style. Yet there was one important difference: Barney Eastwood, who master-minded McGuigan’s rise. would never have allowed his protg to press the flesh in the way Collins did with such gusto.
McGuigan was still an unsophisticated and inexperienced youngster when he became a star but Collins is a mature and settled man of 30 who has been there, done that and been impressed by very little of it. That maturity, acquired in hard years of campaigning in American rings, was the secret weapon he brought to the ring in Millsteet, Co Cork, last Saturday night. The man who had fought the mighty Mike McCallum down to the wire for a world title when McCallum was younger and even more formidable than he is now was never likely to be intimidated by Eubank’s theatrical posturing, and for one of the few times in his unbeaten 43-fight career Eubank found himself in against a man whom he could not dominate mentally.Collins studies people as much fighters, and in spreading the rumour that he had been hypnotised for the fight he struck deep and hard into the core of Eubank, the place where the demons live.