After 12 exhausting, thrilling, and brutal rounds, Chris Eubank Jnr won the grudge match of the year, defeating bitter rival Conor Benn on points.
Billed as the third fight in the rivalry between the two families after their famous fathers, Chris Eubank Snr and Nigel Benn, twice battled in the 1990s, the sons delivered everything those inside the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London hoped to see and by the end, Eubank Jnr had done enough to win 116-112 on all three scorecards.
It marked the first defeat for Benn, who drops to 23-1 (14 KOs) but does so having tackled a man who operates at least two weight classes above him.
Much of the build-up centred around how hard it was for Eubank Jnr to remain at 160lbs, where this fight was fought, but the Brighton man had enough in his tank to propel him to 35-3 (25 KOs), and his output increased as the fight wore on.
By the end, he was relieved to get over the finish line.
Eubank Jnr, sporting a long gash along his right eye, dropped to his knees and shouted: “Let’s go.”
Benn, teary-eyed, looked lost and dejected but the crowd buzzed loudly, in awe of the wild slugging they had witnessed. Whatever the pain of the physical damage of 12 torrid rounds, this will hurt Benn even more when he wakes up.
“I didn’t think he’d be the guy to bring it out of me like that, but the fact that our fathers did what they did all those years ago, it brings out a different soul and a different spirit to you,” said Eubank Jnr. “And that’s what we both showed here.
“I pushed through. There’s a lot of things that have been going on in my life that I’m not going to go into. But I’m happy to have this man [his father] back in my life. We’ve upheld the family name like we said we were going to do, and onwards and upwards.”
Eubank Snr had been absent from the official build-up, but had spoken of the concerns he had for his son having to fight at 160lbs at 35 years of age.
Asked what it meant for his father to walk to the ring with him, Jnr sighed: “A lot. It’s one of those things that was special. All of these things are because of what he did.”
Benn, for his part, felt 14 months of inactivity played a part in his defeat, and he admitted he spent too long on the ropes for sections of the battle.
“I felt like it was a close fight,” he said. “I’ve got to watch it back. I stayed on the ropes maybe a bit too long. He worked harder towards the end. I’ll have to watch it back but I enjoyed it.”
He said he could seek a title fight at 147lbs, and that he was open to a rematch. By the end, they had won one another’s respect.
“I didn’t know what he had in him,” admitted Eubank Jnr. “I really didn’t. I thought I would break him early. I underestimated him.”
The blood was so bad beforehand that the referee Victor Loughlin had to purposefully bring the fighters back together before the first bell to have them grudgingly touch gloves – but they were met with a coliseum-like roar as they set about one another.
Benn flew out of the corner but Eubank Jnr, calm and composed as ever – having vaulted over the top rope to enter the ring – was able to catch the smaller man coming in with his jab and lead left hook from a low position. Benn landed a right near the end of the round but Eubank Jnr pursed his lips together and shrugged.
“Make him miss,” said trainer Tony Sims to Benn before the second, urging his charge to role under the left hook and let his own hands go.
Eubank Jnr, in white shorts with red trim, spat out his left hand, but in the second round the referee instructed them to work and not clinch.
Benn was twitchy, feinting and then attacking, using his legs to spring in and out but sometimes looking – understandably given the occasion – overeager.
Benn launched over several optimistic but ultimately successful right hands, and after both the first and second frames the fighters stared at one another, with the initial grudge seemingly being softened by respect as the fight wore on.
Respect, of course, was a key component. The fathers sat side by side watching while the boys attempt to settle their differences in the school playground before them – in front of some 60,000 other witnesses. Let’s not forget that Eubank Jnr had, only weeks earlier, slapped Benn with an open hand with an egg in it to kick off the promotion for this bout.
A minute into the third and Eubank Jnr was rocked by a left hook and although he smirked we knew that Benn could hurt the bigger man. Eubank Jnr started to lose the jab battle, too. Benn’s high-energy approach allowed him to attack from varying angles and they scrappily tumbled to the deck together in the third. Eubank Jnr, able to control the distance in the first and second rounds, was threatened with being over-run.
Eubank Jnr smiled but it was rough in there and Benn, fired up, was not smiling – although he chomped on a long, rangy right uppercut halfway through the fourth.
Benn’s faster hands then caught Eubank Jnr with a left hook and a right hand. Eubank Jnr again grinned, and by the round’s end Benn was doing Benn things, doing exactly what his dad used to do and daring his opponent to stand and trade with him.
Benn took a flush right in the next and, in the same breath, replied with a left hook. It was captivating and anticipation hung heavily in the air.
“Eu-bank” chants momentarily filled the stadium but Benn remained a constant menace.
“You’re going one shot, one shot, you’ve got to put your punches together,” Sims told Benn.
Eubank’s corner treated him for swelling beneath his right eye.
So much of what Benn – clad in black shorts and black boots – did harked back to the way Nigel Benn fought. He would set himself and let his hands go, almost bracing himself for what might come back, and another Eubank Jnr right uppercut landed in the sixth.
Benn’s upper-body movement meant Eubank Jnr missed with plenty in that session.
Eubank Jnr stepped things up in the seventh. Without putting a dent in Benn, he caught Benn with a sweet one-two, and Eubank Jnr – in a clinch – talked smack into Benn’s ear. Whether that was wise or not, it served to encourage Benn to set his feet and battle back.
Round after round, the Ilford “Destroyer” came out bombing.
Loughlin warned Eubank Jnr about punching in a clinch and there was a sustained spell where Benn was swinging but, often, missing.
A left hook from Eubank Jnr, however, had Benn looking weary. It seemed to travel from his chin and into the soles of his black boots but Benn, with 30 seconds left in the round, battled back and they traded wildly.
It was pulsating, but one wondered – as Eubank Jnr returned to his corner – how much he had left.
Benn crashed in a left-right that had his promoter, Eddie Hearn, leaping off his chair. Benn was looking like an irresistible force and Eubank Jnr not quite the immovable object. They set about one another in the ninth again.
Some had commented about how small the 18ft ring was, but by this point it could have been 15ft and they wouldn’t have been using all of it. They battered each other with right hands. Eubank Jnr was badly cut by his right eye from a clash of heads, but he couldn’t afford to stop.
In his corner, his trainer Johnathon Banks told Eubank: “Your jab is key to everything.”
It was riveting, and Eubank Jnr snapped Benn’s head back with a left that sparked yet another spell of trading.
Whether it was the narrative of the weight making – whether Eubank Jnr has been at the sport too long – it always seemed that despite being well in the fight, that he might just unravel, but he rallied hard at the end of the 10th to give the judges a reminder that he was in there pitching.
Sims, whose fighters recognize punch patterns by the name of great boxers who perfected them, called for Benn to do the “Marquez”.
Benn’s tank didn’t seem close to running dry and Eubank, in the 11th, matched him, throwing tirelessly with both hands to the extent that, when he had some respite, he looked at the clock to see how much longer in the session he had to work.
It was wild, again. Eubank Jnr hand landed several blistering combinations and blood was splattered across Loughlin’s white shirt.
Banks asked Eubank for everything with one round to go.
Both Eubank Jnr and Benn started the 12th with a ferocity that matched anything previously. Eubank Jnr nailed Benn with a right uppercut. They tussled in close. Loughlin had to break them a couple of times, Eubank Jnr kept throwing and started to catch Benn, a left hook the pick of the shots, and Benn was fighting to stay in the contest. They took turns cracking each other with heavy blows and through the last 10 seconds the crowd rose and applauded.
Nigel scooped up his son on to his shoulders to celebrate, Eubank Jnr climbed the turnbuckle to salute the crowd. Both claimed victory, after what had been rough, brutal, and gripping.
The Eubanks being reunited was arguably the story of the night, though it was almost inevitable that Chris Eubank Snr would, at some stage in the promotion, make his presence felt. Footage emerged of him arriving with his son earlier in the evening. Had their rift all been a ruse? Was the limelight too bright for the former champion to ignore? Regardless, the appearance of Snr seemed significant enough to turn the crowd in his son’s favor, and they shrieked their appreciation when images of the pair were shown on the screens.
“I’m so happy he’s here,” Nigel Benn told DAZN before the main event. “I wanted him here from Day Dot. It’s a family affair.”
When the Eubanks made it into the ring, Eubank Snr and Nigel Benn, grizzled rivals from some three decades ago, embraced, and Chris Snr tried to hug Benn, but the Essex warrior was keen to make sure his focus was not snapped.
For those invested in the double-generation family feud, it was a warming moment, but it should also be noted that Chris Eubank Snr and Nigel Benn have been firm friends for years and have delivered a wholesome message about what boxing can do at its best when it comes to self-respect and respect for others. If once they were the bitterest of rivals, that is in the past.
Whether this feud between the sons is condemned there, we shall see. Conor Benn certainly was keen to discuss a return after. And it will likely be there. This fight had been, of course, two years in the making
They should have fought in October 2022, but after Benn twice tested positive for clomifene it was dramatically shelved at late notice and a lengthy process to clear Benn’s name began. For many, it made Benn unwanted on the UK sporting scene, but Matchroom backed him, his father backed him, and the legal wranglings that followed left so many with a sour taste. Many, however, still followed Benn, and he was buoyed by public sentiment, telling me several times that the messages he received were often overwhelmingly positive.
Benn had to take his show on the road, boxing in Florida and Las Vegas, and this marked his return to UK shores, and fighting with a license from the British Boxing Board of Control.
Through it all, Eubank Jnr had teased and taunted Benn, levelling him with “cheat” accusations every step of the way in reference to the failed tests.
At the weigh-in on Friday, Benn wore a bejewelled necklace with "Not Guilty" on it.
The weigh-in had been a thorny subject for so many. This was, in essence, a welterweight against a middleweight.
Had this catchweight attraction not been made, Benn was talking of a welterweight fight with the WBC champion Mario Barrios while Eubank Jnr was eyeing the middleweight champion Erislandy Lara. They were on different career tracks that merged in an unlikely but inevitable fashion.
Instead of Barrios, Benn leapt up and Eubank Jnr conceded he would have to fight at 160lbs, accepting a rehydration clause that meant he could only weigh 170lbs on Saturday morning.
It is, feasibly, all over. One of British boxing’s most chaotic chapters resulted in a chaotic fight and there was no crisis, even if its organizers gambled on it. Calling a fight card Fatal Fury – even after a video game – would have been taboo years earlier with the boxing establishment. Too much blood has been spilled. Too much damage has been done. Both of their fathers had been in tragic fights, with Michael Watson and Gerald McClellan respectively emerging from their bouts against Eubank Snr and Nigel Benn as shadows of their former selves. And, ironically, it was at the ground of Tottenham Hotspur where Watson was left permanently injured after his fight with Eubank at the old White Hart Lane.
Both of the fathers remain on the ballot papers for the International Boxing Hall of Fame. It is unlikely their sons will join them there, but from their fight they emerge with the type of credit that did perhaps what they had always aimed to do – make their fathers proud.
“I felt he done really well,” said Nigel Benn. “He [Conor] learned a lot from this. He’ll come back stronger. I’m not taking anything away from Chris. It’s his night. We can handle defeat gracefully. Now we’ll go back to the drawing board and we know where we went wrong.”
Eubank Snr, preening, of course, beamed: “That is legendary behavior in the ring. I am so proud of him. That’s my son. That’s why I’m here. I was always going to be here.”
He was always going to be there. As inevitable as the fight. As Inevitable as the rematch?
