In Glasgow in May 1993, Chris Eubank had won all 35 of his professional fights and was defending the WBO super-middleweight world title against all comers. He put Ray Close on the canvas and still could not beat him: the judges scored it a draw, the first blemish on Eubank's unbeaten record. Close, the Belfast fighter who twice took Eubank to a world-title decision, died in October 2026 at the age of 57.

Close started boxing at 10 years old at Ledley Hall Youth and Boxing Club in east Belfast, the amateur gym he would return to decades later to coach the next generation. He turned professional in 1988 and built his name on a disciplined, high-guard style built around his jab. "I was a boxer and I think that's the best way," he told the Irish News in 2018. "I had a good jab and I was always told from my days at Holy Family, Ledley Hall, always start with the jab so I always led with my left hand." On 11 December 1991 he stopped Terry Magee in the seventh round at Dublin's National Stadium to defend the Irish super-middleweight title, and on St Patrick's Day 1993 he beat Vincenzo Nardiello for the EBU European super-middleweight championship.

Close fought out of Eastwood's Gym, managed by the promoter Barney Eastwood, and the road to a world-title shot was not straightforward. A stoppage loss to Frank Nicotra in 1992 sent him back to harder training. "That was a big learning curve for me. I just thought 'I have to run more'" he said, and he began running longer distances afterward. His daughter Sarah was born one day before he left for the training camp that preceded his first fight with Eubank, and he was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints throughout his adult life.

The European title earned him the shot at Eubank two months later. "It was absolutely electric, that's what I remember," Close said of walking out for the fight. Eubank, still unbeaten, knocked Close down during the Glasgow fight, yet Close kept coming forward and the judges could not separate them. "I was the first one to put a mark on his record and he'd been in with some great fighters, so I was happy enough," Close said of the result. A rematch followed on 21 May 1994 at a packed King's Hall in Belfast, with promoter Don King ringside. Close pushed the champion through a difficult tenth round, and many in the arena believed he had won, but the judges handed Eubank a split decision.

A third fight never happened. A routine MRI scan found two lesions on Close's brain, and the British Boxing Board of Control revoked his licence before a rubber match could be arranged. He was not ready to stop fighting. "I'd love to box again," he said of that period. "If you retire on your own merits, okay, but when you're told 'that's it', it's harder to deal with." He found a boxing commission in Illinois willing to license him and won five more professional fights in the United States, the last a knockout of Larry Willis in June 1997. His full professional record stood at 25 wins, three defeats and one draw, the draw against Eubank.

Close settled back in Bangor with his wife, Linda, working for a time at Belfast City Airport helping passengers with mobility difficulties, and returned to Ledley Hall to train amateur boxers at the club that had started him. He carried the effects of his ring injuries for the rest of his life, and in his final years he was a resident of the Phoenix Clinic in Newtownards, a specialist facility caring for adults aged 18 to 65 with physical disabilities. His son Benjamin ran the Belfast Half Marathon, the Bangor 10k, the Larne Ten Miler, a full marathon and a seven-peaks challenge over the course of a year, raising almost 5,000 pounds for the clinic, and spent the money on an interactive activity table donated in his father's honour. "They are like a community. All the staff have been amazing throughout this period with my dad's care," Benjamin said, according to the Newtownards Chronicle. A staff member, Claire McConkey, said: "I'll be able to show Ray's boxing career and everything on the screen."

News of Close's death reached Belfast's boxing community on 2 October 2026. Ledley Hall Youth and Boxing Club, the club where he first laced on gloves as a boy, said he was a "true gentleman, humble, kind and always willing to give something back," according to Yahoo Sports.

Close's record, 25 wins, three defeats and one draw, undersells what that Glasgow night meant: he is the fighter who kept Chris Eubank from a perfect career, using a jab he had practiced since he was ten years old at Ledley Hall. One wire report marking his death called him one of the most gifted boxers Northern Ireland had produced, a career that ran from an Irish title defence in Dublin to a European championship to two world-title nights against one of the era's most famous names, then to five more wins on a borrowed licence in Illinois after his own country's boxing authority took it away. The club still trains young amateur boxers in the gym where he started and later coached, and the touchscreen table his son bought for the Phoenix Clinic can now show his old fights to the people who cared for him at the end. Close built that record the hard way, round by round, out of east Belfast, and it still stands.