Most boxing fans believe that Chris Eubank Jr tasted the canvas for the first time against Liam Smith – but that isn’t the case.

‘Next Gen’ was dropped and stopped in the fourth round by Smith in a shock upset at the Manchester Arena in January 2023.

Many people hailed Smith as the first man to knock down Eubank JrLawrence Lustig/BOXXER

Eubank Jr described the punch that floored him as a ‘once in a lifetime’ shot and insisted that he had ‘never touched the canvas before’.

However, amateur rival Nathan Decastro begs to differ.

Back in May 2011, Decastro squared off against Eubank Jr at the Yarborough Leisure Centre in Lincoln – and floored him with the first punch he landed.

“There were one thousand people there for me and it’s something I’ll remember for a long time,” Decastro told talkSPORT.com.

“I dropped him with the first punch I landed and he tried to claim it was a slip.

“But you can clearly see in the video that I caught him with a right hand.

“It was a good tear-up and one of the best amateur fights I’ve been a part of.”

Decastro and Eubank Jr set a relentless pace for the remainder of the contest.

And in the end, it was Eubank Jr who got the nod on the scorecards.

When they rematched one month later in Brighton, the judges weren’t needed as Eubank Jr scored a stoppage victory against the ropes.

YouTube – Chris Eubank JrBut Decastro floored Eubank Jr 11 years prior[/caption]

Decastro added: “The first fight we had a war. In the second fight, which was on Sky, he boxed cleverly and I wasn’t quite on my game.

“I hadn’t been training and I’d been on the p*** for two or three weeks.

“So I was just a fraction behind the pace and he caught me with a good shot.

“It didn’t rock me but the referee stopped it. They just wanted him to get a big win on Sky and he turned over after that.

“I tried to get a third fight with him but it never happened.”

While Eubank Jr went on to become one of the faces of British boxing, Decastro carved out a decent career of his own.

‘The Nightmare’ compiled a 16-0 record in the pros before having his license revoked by the board due to his eye condition, retinitis pigmentosa, which causes night blindness and poor peripheral vision.

After being forced to retire from the paid ranks, Decastro turned his hand to bare-knuckle boxing under British promoter BKBtm (now BYB).

In his second fight, he defeated Paul Hilz to become the company’s British lightweight champion but is currently riding a three-fight skid.