Much was made of the uncommonly small ring for Chris Eubank Jr. vs. Conor Benn. The two sons of British boxing royalty had just 18 square feet to get to work.
As they lurched wearily and repeatedly into the breach towards the end of an electrifying round eight, whipping in savage hooks with their heads virtually on one another’s shoulders, they might as well have been doing it in a red London telephone box as opposed to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
On Saturday night, Eubank and Benn provided soul-shaking proof that you can pack boxing with as much surrounding pantomime, stupidity and reckless opportunism as you like (this confected generational grudge match had more than most). But when a fight ignites as theirs did, it all melts away. You’re left with a raw sporting spectacle that leaves nowhere to hide.
Two failed drug tests, rehydration clauses, familial enmity, eggs, a broken/mended father-son relationship, three decades of shared history. It all becomes background noise to the thud and smack of leather on skin and bone.
WATCH: Chris Eubank Jr. vs. Conor Benn on DAZN
Who won Eubank Jr. vs. Benn?
Chris Eubank Jr. won a deserved unanimous decision via margins of 116-112 on all three of the judges’ scorecards after 12 captivating rounds with a fearless Conor Benn. The family ledger now reads Eubank 2, Benn 0 with one draw.
Chris Sr. stopped an exhausted Nigel Benn in the ninth round of their WBO middleweight clash in Birmingham in November 1990, inadvertently setting us on the path to their son’s unlikely clash this weekend. The fathers met again at Old Trafford in October 1993, with a split draw widely viewed to have done the bigger disservice to Benn. As such, Conor continued an unwanted family tradition of failing to beat a Eubank but having reasonable grounds to think he maybe should have done.
“It’s a hard one to swallow,” said a visibly emotional Benn at his post-fight press conference. “I didn’t come into the fight for anything apart from winning and I weren’t good enough, so I need to do better.”
Seeding the immediately fertile ground for a rematch, Conor added: “I want my revenge. I think inactivity played a big part.”
Will Benn get his wish? More to the point, should he?
Chris Eubank Jr. vs. Conor Benn rematch: Will it happen?
You would never expect Benn to agree, but in the cold light of the morning after, this was probably the best outcome for all concerned.
Almost three years ago, when this fight was first signed, two boxers without a legitimate world title between them put their respective efforts in that direction on hold to meet one another in a tawdry circus of fan service. Benn’s promoter Eddie Hearn and Eubank’s former representative Kalle Sauerland were still keen for the October 2022 date to go ahead despite Conor returning a positive test for the banned substance clomiphene.
That course of action was ultimately untenable once the British Boxing Board of Control withdrew its sanctioning. News of another Benn positive then emerged and he was left with a fight to clear his name while ticking over in a couple of American contests. Eubank put himself in a sort of holding pattern, continuing to box at the weight he was when he faced Billy Joe Saunders for the British title in November 2014, trading a defeat and a victory with Liam Smith as he waited for the monster Benn payday to come back around.
If Benn had made good on his pre-fight prediction of taking Eubank apart in two rounds, it would have been an awful look — a boxer yet to adequately explain two failed tests to the public beating up a man weight drained by contractual stipulations. Similarly, when Eubank thumped Benn with a juddering lead left hook during the opening seconds and looked so much bigger than his foe, the prospect of a one-sided beatdown in a contest that ran roughshod over natural weight classes did not feel at all appealing.
Mark Robinson/Matchroom Boxing
Instead, the circumstances and timing conspired to produce an instant classic. Benn was fresh enough, fast enough and athletic enough to trouble Eubank, who was lumpen on his feet after abiding by the 10-pound rehydration clause. The other side of that coin was Benn lacking the elite-level experience or recent ring activity to truly make a vulnerable Eubank pay.
With his Chris Sr. at ringside despite his understandable and relentless criticism of the event — barbs that now feel like part of the performance — Eubank Jr. dialled into what his father frequently refers to as “the warrior code”. He stood in the trenches with a younger, smaller man and traded. In the final Compubox analysis, Eubank had outlanded Benn every round. The championship rounds became a brutal ordeal for Conor.
After a cordial in-ring interview, Eubank went to hospital to have a suspected broken jaw inspected. That cleared the way for Team Benn to set the post-fight narrative, one of a fight that could have gone either way. As gallantly as their man fought, the statistics and the eye test show that simply wasn’t the case.
Nigel Benn quickly banged the drum for a September rematch. Bloody Eubanks, we’ll get ’em one day kid. Of course, Conor wants to run it back, his fighting pride dented by professional defeat for the first time. More significantly than both of those wishes, Saudi boxing supremo Turki Alalshikh said: “If they’re not injured and ready, we want the rematch in late September at Tottenham.”
Why there should be no Eubank Jr. vs. Benn rematch: Weight games and title aims
Long before Alalshikh arrived on the scene, “If it makes money, it makes sense” was boxing’s defining matchmaking rule. But now there’s more money than ever, for better or worse, swilling around the old fight game, perhaps we could be judicious.
Hearn was swept up by the pre-fight trash talk to an unseemly degree, but he was a cool voice of reason afterwards, talking about Benn’s ambitions and potential to win a world title in his natural division of welterweight. After what he gave on Saturday, plenty will be eager to see him try.
Eubank Jr. has one of the most curious careers in modern boxing. A frequent arena and pay-per-view bill-topper in his homeland and a multimillionaire, he has boxed for a legitimate world title once when he was beaten soundly by George Groves in February 2018.
Junior should move to 168 pounds again and shoot for a career-sealing triumph, having already ascended to the unlikely status of people’s champion in the UK through the maelstrom of this Benn saga. Perhaps Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez at Wembley, if another weight-surfing Saudi monster clash between the Mexican icon and Terence Crawford doesn’t come to pass. Or even against a young, hungry contender at London’s O2 Arena for one of the belts Canelo is likely to vacate over the coming year.
If Eubank Jr. and Benn meet once more under the same terms, the elder fighter would perilously roll the dice in their gravely dangerous trade. He warmly embraced Nick Blackwell during fight week, a boxer who suffered life-changing injuries after their 2016 British middleweight title fight. Sitting on front row seats that must not have been as comfortable as they looked, Nigel Benn and Chris Sr. watched their sons engage in a toe-to-toe war. It would only have been natural for fallen foes Gerald McClellan and Michael Watson to float into their thoughts.
Similarly, if Benn fights his rival in a 22-foot ring in a middleweight clash without rehydration limits, he could be badly and unnecessarily beaten up. Danger is baked into boxing, but it should be made as safe as possible. The contortions to make Eubank Jr. vs. Benn a reality mean we cannot say this was the case.
It’s time for these two brave young men and their remarkable families to tread their own paths as far as possible. Chris Sr’s WWE–style arrival and in-ring embraces with the Benns were emotionally charged and genuinely beautiful to witness. But these 35 years of craziness have taken a toll on both fathers.
WATCH: Chris Eubank Jr. vs. Conor Benn on DAZN
Whatever the truth and sincerity of their fight night reconciliation, Eubank Jr. and Sr. have clearly suffered a painfully fractured relationship over recent years. It would be nice for that to have a chance to mend at its own pace, away from the ghosts of this incredible history. Nigel and Conor have shown a contrastingly united front – dad, lad and best mates. But Benn Sr. reeling off lists of the sparring partners his son had apparently battered was a tough spectacle. There was more than a sense of vicarious living going on. My son’s going to finish what I couldn’t…
None of it feels sustainable or healthy. As Nigel and Chris sat next to each other, experiencing nail-biting anxiety as their sons bit down grimly on their gumshields, there was an undercurrent of sadness. Those two men put themselves through hellish punishment to give their families a life of luxury and security few can dream of. And for what? So they can now punch each other for the entertainment of millions. The Eubank-Benn rivalry is one of intoxicating, generation-spanning madness. We all greedily feasted on the latest instalment, a sensory overload of undiluted nostalgia and present-day fortitude. That should be enough for us to let them be with gratitude.
