Howard Eastman
Howard Anthony Eastman ( born December 8, 1970 in New Amsterdam, East Berbice - Corentyne ) is a British- Guyanese professional boxer at middleweight. He is a former two time European champion of the EBU and world title challenger William Joppy and Bernard Hopkins.
Private
Howard Eastman was born in New Amsterdam and grew up before he drew his two brothers and his sister to London at the age of 15 years with his parents. His younger brother, Gilbert Eastman (born 1972 ) also exerted the professional boxing and was a British Southern Area Light Middleweight Champion. Howard Eastman is married and father of three children.
Boxing career
Eastman trained at London's Battersea Boxing Club and took from 1991 to 1993 as an amateur boxer in tournaments in London in part, before he became a professional in 1994. He won his first 32 professional fights in a row, 29 of which prematurely. He won a number of regional titles, including British Champion, Intercontinental Champion IBO and WBA, and Commonwealth champion. On 10 April 2001, he was in London the new European Champion (EBU ) middleweight after his compatriot Robert McCracken ( 33-1, 20 Ko) by TKO had defeated in the tenth round.
On November 17, 2001, he boxed in Las Vegas against William Joppy ( 32-2) for the WBA middleweight championship, but lost it after controversial points. Joppy had towards the end of the struggle reveals condition deficiencies and tried to compensate for this by using parentheses and dodging. A few seconds before the end of the fight Joppy eventually went to two head shots even to the ground, but it was explained at the end with a 2:1 vote the winner.
In January 2003, Eastman was again won the EBU title by a premature victory against Frenchman Christophe Tendil, who was taken out of the fight from ringside doctor due to multiple facial injuries. After successful title defenses against Scott Dann (15-1 ), Hacine Cherifi ( 34-7 ) and Sergei Tatewosjan ( 21-3 ), and a win against Jerry Elliott ( 37-4 ), he received a renewed world title chance against Bernard Hopkins ( 45-2 ).
He punched on February 19, 2005 in Las Vegas at the championship belt of all four major world organizations ( WBA, WBC, WBO and IBF), losing to Hopkins by unanimous decision. In July 2005, he also lost in Nuremberg on points against Arthur Abraham. In March 2006, he was defeated in a world title eliminator against Edison Miranda for the first time earlier by technical knockout.
After two consecutive victories against Richard Williams ( 21-3 ) and Evans Ashira ( 26-2 ), he had again suffered two defeats against Wayne Elcock and John Duddy. After the defeat against Duddy, he boxed from now on in Guyana, where she won 5 July 2008 national championship title at middleweight. One last significant victory he celebrated on 25 October 2008 when he had a points win against former WBA world champion Andrew Lewis ( 23-3 ).