When it came time to spar, Chris Eubank Jr. would always wrap his own hands. He would enter the gym, ignore anyone he passed, and immediately head to the furthest neutral corner, where the process would begin. With him, or behind him, was his coach and members of his family, but never did he look for helping hands. In fact, knowing the importance of his own, Eubank Jr. trusted only himself to wrap them and woe betide somebody interfere or question why.
Even then, at just age 22, the son of Chris Eubank had established himself as his own man. His thoughts were his own and he cared for nobody else’s. His hands were for punching, not shaking.
“If I give you only support, it will buckle you,” his Hall of Fame father, a former WBO champion at both middleweight and super middleweight, once told me. “Support networks are counterproductive in boxing. If you stand on your own two feet and you’re not leaning, you have a chance. I remember [Hall of Fame boxer] Mike McCallum saying to me [about Eubank Jr.], ‘He’s a bad boy.’ A bad boy means he’s got energy, he’s special. It means someone you don’t mess with.”
Chris Eubank was usually with his son whenever he entered the gym, as was Sebastian, Eubank Jr.’s late brother, and his coach Ronnie Davies, a so-called “honorary Eubank” and loyal servant of the family across two generations. Yet, despite this familiarity, little was said between them and never was there a sense that Eubank Jr. visited boxing gyms, especially other people’s, to either make friends or socialize. Instead, he entered them with only one thing in mind and only one purpose. He wanted to fight, get from the experience whatever he needed, and then leave. He wanted you to remember his actions, not his words.
You did, too. You remembered the way he prepared his hands all alone, and you remembered how detached he appeared from the people around him, even the ones he loved. You also remembered how cold he was with his father, the man who started it all, and how there seemed to be a constant battle within Eubank Jr. to both embrace this fountain of knowledge and also ignore and escape it.
“I got badly beaten up on my first day at the gym,” said Eubank Jr., who first entered Hove Amateur Boxing Club at the age of 15. “The kid must have been 18 or 19 and probably had 20 to 30 amateur bouts to his name. Everybody in the gym assumed that because of my name, and because of who my father was, I would be able to walk into the gym and handle myself. I was thrown to the wolves on that first day and paid the price. I got absolutely battered for three rounds.
“I left the gym and made a pact with myself that that would never happen to me again. Rather than cry about it and give up, my competitive nature allowed me to use it as a catalyst. I went to the gym pretty much every day after that.”
Like most who are exposed to hardship, Eubank Jr. reacted to it by toughening his shell. He trusted nobody and soon looked to defy and outlast his family name, this thing that both opened doors and led to him getting beaten up. To be famous, he now realized, was to be targeted. To be friendly was to be soft.
“No, no, no, he’s happy-go-lucky,” argued his dad. “He’s militant but he’s easy to be around. You can get on with him fine, just don’t bring up boxing. If you bring up boxing, the shutters come down.
“He’s cold, insular, driven, and a warmonger. Also, unapologetic. He believes in the universal law which goes like this: For every action, there is an opposite and equal reaction. Don’t mess with me and I won’t mess with you. That’s Junior.
“I wasn’t mean-spirited. If I had someone in trouble, I’d back up. Junior has mean intentions, though. Bad intentions. He is real and he has that intensity and he is cold.”
Two weeks shy of his professional debut in 2011, I watched Eubank Jr. spar George Groves for the first time in Vauxhall, London. I then watched the pair spar again with Eubank Jr. now four fights into his career, and on this occasion, Eubank Sr., wearing a tailored suit, bowtie and winklepickers, was filming the five rounds on his phone and counting the number of jabs — just jabs — his son decided to throw. Junior reached 20 before the bell to end the opening round and Eubank smiled the kind of smile his son had yet to learn.
“I’m just happy that my father believes in me,” said Eubank Jr. around the time of that spar. “It gives me a lot of encouragement. Anybody who knows my father will know that he’s a straight talker and doesn’t blow smoke up anybody’s arse. Even as his son, I’m no different. If he truly didn’t feel I could make it, my dad would have no problem telling me so. The fact that he believes in me so much just makes me want to work even harder for it. I can’t let him down.
“Of course there will be similarities,” he continued. “I am his son and we share the same blood and DNA. Things might not be exactly the same, but if you watch the way I punch and move, I’m sure you will pick up similarities. It’s just a natural thing. I’m not trying to impersonate him or steal ideas.”
Between rounds Eubank could be seen in the corner giving his son advice, though seldom did Junior acknowledge it, nor was there any suggestion that he was even listening. Instead, he accepted water from Davies, again without acknowledgement, and he impatiently waited for the buzzer and the next round to begin. It was then everything would go silent. It was then, for three minutes, he could stop being Chris Eubank’s son.
In 2019, Nigel Benn, at the age of 55, fielded a question from his own son during a press conference to announce his comeback fight, scheduled for November 23 of that year.
No longer the “Dark Destroyer,” Benn was instead now calling himself “Benjamin Button” and convinced he needed to box again in order to find some sort of salvation and closure. “I never really had it,” he said, speaking of closure. “All through my career I have been in a dark place from eight [years of age], spliffing, smoking … doing everything ’til I was 41. Jesus then came into my life and my life changed. There was no spliffing, no sexing, no ecstasy, no cigarettes. Everything changed. But I just need that one more fight.”
That “one more fight” was meant to be against Sakio Bika, a former WBC super middleweight champion and a man 15 years Benn’s junior. It was to arrive 23 years after Benn’s last fight, against Steve Collins, and was a fight only the British and Irish Boxing Authority (BIBA) were prepared to sanction. It was also a fight announced just as the career of his son, Conor, was starting to really gather momentum, leading many to question whether the father had been motivated to return due to envy more than anything. After all, Conor’s career had brought the “Dark Destroyer” back into the light, having for years tried to escape it by moving to Australia, where nobody connected to boxing ever bothered him. Now, with Conor the talk of the town, and with Nigel key to the story, there was no avoiding the thing that had both defined and damaged him in equal measure. Sometimes proximity is all it takes.
“It’s madness, isn’t it?” said Conor. “If he was doing it for money, I’d say, ‘Listen, that’s really selfish. There are easier ways to make money.’ But he’s not. And he’s not doing it for fame, either. Being in Australia, he’s as far away from fame as possible. He’s doing this for himself.
“Do I want him fighting? No, not at all. Did I tell him that? One hundred percent. But he still chose to fight, so I made my peace with that. I’ve said what I wanted to say and now I’m going to support him.
“Who am I to take that away from a man? Who am I to not support my dad? Do I approve of his decision? No. Do I want to see him get punched in the face? Not at all. But he’s my dad and I love him no matter what.”
During that Thursday press conference in London, Conor, sitting stern-faced among journalists, waited patiently for his moment to ask his father a question. When it finally arrived, his question was simple: “If you win, Dad, will this really be your last fight?” To which his father said yes, it would be.
“Now it’s on record,” Conor said afterward. “But the thing is, if he bangs Bika out in a few rounds it will prove he’s still got it.
“You have to know a fighter’s mentality. A fighter will fight until he’s in the grave. Speaking to other fighters, it just seems like it’s a bug that never leaves. Hopefully not, though. We’ll see.”
As part of the big sell, Benn claimed to feel “three times fitter” than he was when beating Gerald McClellan to retain his WBC super middleweight title in 1995, and said his timing was “good” despite not having sparred for 23 years. He then later became tearful on account of the emotion of it all.
“I was thinking about retirement,” Benn explained, “because I know it’s coming.
“I’m looking forward to the peace I’ll get after this fight. I think that’s what everyone really wants — peace in their life.”
Whether Nigel Benn has now found this peace, almost six years on, only he and those close to him will know. But what we do know is that the fight with Sakio Bika was cancelled a mere four weeks after the press conference to announce it, and that Benn, having tried to be something else, returned to just being a father; something his son would need more than ever in the years to come.
At first, it was simply pitched as the sons of two famous world champions continuing the family business. In one corner you had Chris Eubank Jr., son of Chris Eubank, and in the other you had Conor Benn, son of Nigel Benn.
That they were separated by more than one weight class was an inconvenience many, including the fighters themselves, were content to overlook. Benn was a welterweight, while Eubank Jr. was a middleweight, and yet nothing was going to stop them capitalizing on what their fathers started back in the ’90s.
Across two fights, one in 1990 and the other in 1993, Nigel Benn and Chris Eubank managed to become not only household names in the U.K., but the standard by which all domestic rivalries are now measured. Not unlike The Rolling Stones vs. The Beatles, you were with either one or the other, and whichever side you chose said everything about your personality and tastes when it came to watching two boxers throw punches.
It was Eubank who went on to win the first fight, at middleweight, yet a draw in the rematch, this time at super middleweight, left the rivalry open — open-ended, open to interpretation. The occasion was bigger the second time around, with the fight held at Old Trafford before 42,000 fans, but the result was far less satisfying. It meant the conflict would rage on. It meant the franchise was for years dormant rather than dead.
At the time neither Benn nor Eubank would have imagined that their offspring would be the ones to reprise and conclude it, but that, in 2022, became the proposed plan. It was sold as a revamp — think some new “Karate Kid” update — and would take place at 157.5 pounds, somewhere between welterweight (147 pounds) and middleweight (160 pounds), with Oct. 8 as the agreed date.
However, three days prior to that, on Oct. 5, news broke that Conor Benn had failed a performance-enhancing drug test for the banned substance clomiphene. Following that, and following a futile attempt on the part of the promoters to circumvent the facts and reality, the fight was off and the rivalry tainted.
Yet if we know anything about boxing it is that time heals all wounds and, sure enough, in this case it has. Now, two and a half years on from their original date, Benn and Eubank Jr. are again set to fight, this time with a different selling point. Now, rather than being billed as a battle between sons of legends, Benn vs. Eubank III is instead being sold in a more generic and much darker way, one that strips this familial drama of all its integrity. It is being sold as good vs. evil, though it is not yet clear who has embraced which role, and it has become cheap, viral content many hope will only get dirtier and more dangerous as the first bell approaches. Already, in fact, there have been expletive-filled rows at press conferences and we have seen Chris Eubank Jr. strike Conor Benn with an egg during a head-to-head and call it just deserts.
The one thing we haven’t seen, however, is Chris Eubank, the father, at any press conference or media event. He has been conspicuous by his absence and his absence speaks volumes. “I will not be an accomplice to their stupidity, to their circus,” he explained on a recent charity walk with Michael Watson, a boxer who suffered life-changing injuries when fighting Eubank in 1991. “Junior,” he said to SecondsOut.com, “you’re smashing an egg against this guy’s face. I didn’t teach you that. Who taught you that? Did Karen [Eubank Jr.’s mother] teach you that? That’s disgraceful. I’m going to stand in your corner? You must be mad. I would never be in your corner. You’re a disgrace.”
Right or wrong, Eubank’s absence has robbed the promotion of one of its key ingredients and half the reason this rivalry exists. It has also provided Conor Benn with ammunition whenever he has found himself struggling to match Eubank Jr.’s talk.
“Chris can say what he wants,” Benn said at the pair’s launch press conference. “The bottom line is, his dad don’t even like him. You could not pay that man enough money to sit in this man’s corner. That’s an accomplishment, Chris.”
Two days after that comment, at yet another press conference, Eubank Jr. chose to remind Benn’s father that in the aftermath of the egg incident, he, Nigel, had put his hand around Eubank Jr.’s throat. He then told Nigel that if that ever happened again, he would not be getting the hand back.
“Shut your f***ing mouth!” Conor snapped in response. “Do you hear me? Threaten my dad again and watch what happens to you.”
“Conor, leave it,” said his father. “I’ve got it. I can handle this. I’m old-school, mate. I had this with his dad. This is not a problem.” To Eubank Jr.: “I understand and I apologize for doing that, mate. I really am sorry that I done that.”
“Dad, he’s just upset that his dad don’t like him.”
That, given the origin story of both, represented a rather sad and unsavory moment in a manufactured rivalry now full of them. It was also a reminder that often the very thing that brings people together is the thing that one day breaks them apart. Here, regrettably, that thing is money. It is power. It is control. It is love.
Each of those things have for years allowed Benn, 28, and Eubank Jr., 35, to reap the benefits of their fathers’ success. Yet, in their effort to now escape their shadow but still use their name, we are seeing the stark differences between the old generation and the new, reminded only of change and all we have lost. “We need some parliamentary procedure,” said Eubank Jr. during their first press conference, and he was right. His dad once said the same thing.