Chris Eubank Sr. and Nigel Benn delivered two fights in the 1990s that went down in British boxing folklore. Eubank Sr. stopped Benn in their first meeting to win the WBO middleweight championship, and when the pair met for the second time, the verdict was a contentious draw.
More than 30 years since Eubank Sr. and Benn’s 12-round thrillers, their sons, Chris Eubank Jr. and Conor Benn, look to follow in their famous fathers’ footsteps and give British boxing another night it’ll never forget when they clash at a sold-out Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London on Saturday.
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Nigel has been firmly in his son’s corner since Eubank Jr. vs. Benn was made official, but Eubank Sr. has been a vocal opponent of the bout, citing the weight difference between the two fighters as a substantial issue. Benn, a natural welterweight, is moving up to the 160-pound middleweight limit for Saturday’s fight, and a 10-pound rehydration clause is in place, which Eubank Sr. sees as unsafe for his son.
Eubank Sr. has also labeled the bout as making a “mockery of boxing” and views Eubank Jr.’s egging of Benn as “disgraceful.”
“Look, I have to say — and I can agree with a lot of things Senior says — but I thought that was disgraceful,” Eubank Jr.’s promoter, BOXXER’s Ben Shalom, said of Eubank Sr.’s comments Wednesday on Uncrowned’s “The Ariel Helwani Show.”
“I think Chris should be extremely proud of his son and what he’s achieved in his shadow and then gone on to achieve. The big nights he’s done, the adversity he’s come through. I really didn’t like it.
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“Sometimes the only way I can rationalize it, you know [Eubank Sr. has] been through extremely hard things in recent times, and he hasn’t been well at times, and I think the media therefore needs to be careful around a very delicate situation and perhaps a fragile state of mind,” Shalom continued. “No father should say that about their son, but particularly when their son is very honest, very dedicated, and a great role model. I really didn’t like it.
“One thing I know for sure is Chris [Eubank Jr.] is ice cold, and this close to a fight, it won’t affect him. But will it affect him when he hangs his gloves up and moves on? Maybe it will. But personal things, for me, have to stay out of the cameras. Chris would love his dad to be there, but that’s the difference — he wants a dad. He doesn’t want a trainer, he doesn’t want an advisor; he’d like him there as his father.”
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Eubank Jr. used to be trained by his father, however the pair split in 2019. Eubank Jr. told Uncrowned earlier this month that he fired his father from his training team because he wanted to go through his own experiences rather than having someone make all the decisions for him. Since then, Eubank Sr. has had limited input on his son’s career.
Eubank Jr. and other notable figures in boxing, including Nigel Benn, have pleaded with Eubank Sr. to be in his son’s corner for the Eubank Jr. vs. Benn second-generation fight, but less than three days away from fight night, it seems unlikely that will be the case. Nevertheless, Shalom knows that Eubank Jr. has the most important fight of his career in front of him and insists that his father’s absence won’t be a distraction to Eubank Jr.
Eubank Jr. vs. Benn will be contested in a smaller ring, at the request of Benn’s team. The pair will throw down in an 18-foot by 18-foot ring on Saturday night at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. The standard ring size in British boxing is 20 feet by 20 feet inside the ropes, although ring sizes between 16 feet by 16 feet and 24 feet by 24 feet are allowed.
An 18-foot ring, theoretically, will make it harder for Eubank Jr. to box and move — as we’ve seen him do in recent fights — and make it easier for the explosive Benn to cut off the space in order to land big power punches. Shalom, however, believes that Eubank Jr. will meet Benn head-on Saturday.
Chris Eubank Jr. during Wednesday’s public workouts in London. (Bradley Collyer/PA Images via Getty Images)
(Bradley Collyer – PA Images via Getty Images)
“Eubank Jr. stoppage, Round 5 or 6,” Shalom predicted. “It’s going to be a fire-fight. These two guys don’t box on the back foot, they’re not technical fighters. They’re at their best when they’re fighting — they’re fighters.”
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“I think they’ve got too much ego to box on the back foot. I think they’re going to meet each other in the middle of the ring and it’s going to be an absolute shootout. It’s not just the names, it’s not the story, it’s not just the animosity, but it’s the actual styles of the fight. It’s going to be absolute mayhem from Round 1.”
Shalom is so confident in his charge that he is willing to accept a £1 million bet offered by Benn’s promoter, Eddie Hearn.
“He made that bet with me,” Shalom said. “Make sure, if you speak to him, that he sticks to it because suddenly he’s trying to reverse out of it. [If he didn’t want it,] I don’t know why he brought it up, he made the bet.”
There have been questions raised about whether such a bet is legal, as British Boxing Board of Control license holders — which Shalom and Hearn are in their capacity as promoters — aren’t allowed to bet in fights they are involved in. Shalom, however, claims that he has been given the green light to go through with the wager.
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“I’ve been told I can do it — we can do it. He doesn’t want to do it now, but he’s a big boy with a lot of money, and so he should stick to it,” Shalom said. “He should stick to his word, and we should get it on.”
Whittaker’s revenge
For Shalom’s BOXXER, it’s one major fight week after another. This past Sunday, Ben Whittaker silenced the naysayers with a second-round TKO win over Liam Cameron. Cameron and Whittaker fought to a draw this past October after their fight ended dramatically when both men toppled over the ropes and outside the ring during the fifth round.
British boxing has a history of big rematches born from controversy. From Carl Froch vs. George Groves to Josh Taylor vs. Jack Catterall, British fight fans seemingly love nothing more than a controversial ending.
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“The build-up over here, this was a story — this rematch captivated British boxing,” Shalom said of Whittaker vs. Cameron 2. “You have Ben Whittaker, the Olympic silver medalist, flying high. We’ve never seen the numbers of someone at this stage of their career. You [divide] opinion, and the night of Oct. 12, when the two of them fell out of the ring and the controversy that came, it was crazy.
“At that point, we said to [Whittaker], ‘Do you want another fight?’ He said, ‘No, we want to go straight back into the rematch.’ He had to do a lot of soul-searching, but I tell you what, the pressure he was under, the ridiculous amount of pressure that he was under — he came through, and his statement was emphatic. It was a superb performance.”
Ben Whittaker made short work of Liam Cameron in the rematch, even if the referee stoppage only invited more controversy. (Nick Potts/PA Images via Getty Images)
(Nick Potts – PA Images via Getty Images)
“I feel like fans sometimes want fighters to be literally stitched [on] to the canvas,” Shalom added of the latest controversy over Sunday’s referee stoppage. “Those knockout reel moments are fantastic, and they’re fantastic for Ben, and maybe part of Ben’s camp feels like it would have been nice for [the rematch] to go on and get one of them. But, for me, at ringside, when you see the fighter’s eyes roll and you see he’s got a perforated eardrum and he’s hardly standing up, it’s only getting worse and worse. I actually feel like sometimes referees should save the fighter for another day.”
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Whittaker was subjected to months of abuse on social media before the fight, and despite his thunderous performance on his biggest night to date, many fight fans still weren’t satisfied. The crowd at the BP Pulse LIVE arena in Birmingham, England — not far from Whittaker’s hometown — booed when Sunday’s official decision was read out and during Whittaker’s post-fight interview.
“In the U.S., this guy would be celebrated like you wouldn’t believe,” Shalom insisted. “But over here [in England], because of his flashiness, because of his confidence, because of his background, it sort of brings out the worst of people and the worst in fans at times.”
British fans have long been supporters of humble boxers. Anthony Joshua is the biggest boxing star to come from the U.K. in recent years, and he was the epitome of that.
Whittaker’s showboating antics may have been a success on social media, but in Britain, they are frowned upon. Some fans watch Whittaker fights, waiting for the day when they can celebrate his downfall, but much was the case for Floyd Mayweather and “Prince” Naseem Hamed, and it’s fair to say they didn’t suffer too badly from it.
Shalom confirmed to Uncrowned that Whittaker will return to the ring in September in another hometown headliner — with Lewis Edmondson, Dan Azeez and Willy Hutchinson as potential opponents for the unbeaten light heavyweight.
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