It is difficult to know where to begin, but at the end, Chris Eubank Jr sank to his knees as his father stood proudly by his side, while Conor Benn embraced his own father and closed his eyes, perhaps wishing to drift into a dreamworld away from the very real nightmare around him.
Also around him were 67,000 souls, 67,000 witnesses to his demise after so many threats, so much snarling, so much aggression – an aggression which simply could not deliver the decisive blow he had craved for years. Make no mistake, this was not an emphatic demise; in fact, the 28-year-old had fought valiantly in a boxing match that resembled a theatrical melodrama more than a sporting contest. Instead, his downfall played out over 12 rounds, with victory so often appearing within his twitchy grasp.
As violent as Benn was in Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, and as desperately as he pursued glory, Eubank Jr was just that bit better. At times, the 35-year-old looked gone – just as he had looked mentally absent on the scales on Friday, after a gruelling weight-cut – yet he never truly went away. He seemed spurred on by something inexplicable, something intangible, yet if one were to supply a romantic answer, they might fall upon the presence of his father.
At the eleventh hour, in a plot twist worthy of this eccentric idol, Eubank Sr arrived at the venue with his son, despite publicly criticising this match-up and the weight disparity between Jr and Benn as recently as this week, and despite his alleged estrangement from his offspring.
Thirty-two years after Nigel and Sr rounded out their own bitter rivalry, fighting to a draw three years after Sr beat his fellow Briton, the enemies-turned-friends shared a ring again. This time, each stood behind his son, supporting.
With that final twist, drama was ensured at the end, which was fitting given it had accompanied Jr and Conor’s feud from the start. In 2022, their bout collapsed on a few days’ notice, upon the revelation that Benn had returned two adverse drug-test results. This Friday, Eubank Jr missed weight by 0.05lb and was forced to pay £375,000. A glove row even ensued on the night before this contest. And still the drama was not complete until a grinning Sr stepped out of a car with his son. That scene elicited a raucous response from the crowd, with chatter scattered throughout the stands for minutes thereafter. When the screens showed the Benns watching the Eubanks’ arrival, box-office value was not just achieved but surpassed.
But there was still box-office boxing to come.
In the early going, Eubank Jr – the natural middleweight, despite what his struggles on the scales suggested – looked to exploit his size advantage over Benn, who was fighting two divisions higher than usual. Benn’s movements were pronounced and exaggerated, while Eubank Jr’s were compact and tidy. As the fight wore on, however, one might briefly have read those signs not as examples of each man’s technique, but rather his physical state: Jr seemed somewhat depleted.
The first examples of Benn’s viciousness truly arose in the second round, as he put Eubank Jr off balance with a right hook and later landed a picture-perfect cross. In the third frame, a left hook had Eubank Jr on unsteady legs, before the Britons grappled each other to the canvas. In the fourth, Eubank Jr began to chirp at Benn, before jolting back the younger fighter’s head with a smart rear uppercut.
With Benn talking back in the fifth, the boxers were warned by the referee for their polite conversation. Later in the frame, Benn was down from a slip, before Eubank Jr had the crowd chanting his name after endearing them by shoulder-barging Benn to the ropes and tagging him with a hook on the rebound. The sixth brought a frantic exchange, neither the first nor last, while the seventh saw Eubank Jr snap back Benn’s head with right and left straights as the natural welterweight seemed to be fading.
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Yet Benn then produced his best round. He started well in the eighth, and after gulping down some cold London air, he staggered Eubank Jr with a right hook. Eubank Jr continued to throw but did not have his legs under him. He somehow survived to the buzzer, throwing all the way, and it was at this moment that Sr calmly strolled to the steps and up to his son’s corner.
Whatever he said worked. While Eubank Jr was almost in trouble after sustaining a cut in the ninth, he kept trudging forward like a zombie in the 10th – with spite and in spite of the attacks coming his way – ultimately dazing Benn with an uppercut and right hook. Eubank Jr was throwing with greater and greater volume, which he sustained in the 11th.
There were also intermittent firefights in these rounds, and the final frame began with a willing touch of gloves, a very different picture from the opening of the fight, when the rivals had to be dragged away from each other. Both fighters began landing with their heads as much as their hands in the last round, then the crowd erupted as Benn swayed with his mouth agape, courtesy of the violence that Eubank Jr was conjuring.
After the final bell, Conor Benn and Eubank Sr shared respect in a touching moment, but the scores were soon revealed, and the only father Conor wanted was his own.
In-ring ecstasy for the Eubanks, heartache for the Benns. Perhaps that was destiny in a unique rivalry like this, confined to two families and spanning generations.
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