If you didn’t know that Chris Eubank Jnr and Conor Benn are fighting again this weekend in London, England, consider yourself both forgiven and now reminded.
For whatever reason this rematch has gone under the radar, quite unlike their first encounter in April. One minute it was being threatened and the next it was here, like a jump scare. It will of course, now that it’s here, receive the customary fight-week build-up, and presumably come to life, yet still it is tough to shake the feeling that the British public have had their fill of Eubank Jnr and Benn and finally grown tired of them.
After all, if it wasn’t enough to hear the names Benn and Eubank conjoined throughout the 1990s, the British public have now had to watch these same two names get reattached and repeated 30 years later. Not only that, the ongoing rivalry between Eubank Jnr and Benn, a beast of its own, has become one dragged and stretched out over a period of three years. Endlessly long, it began with a proposed fight in October 2022 – scuppered when Conor Benn failed two tests for a performance-enhancing drug – but not until April 2025 did the pair finally produce something tangible: a fight, and a good one at that.
The problem is, for as good as that April fight turned out to be, there was little left on the plate afterwards. Meaning, we, the audience, had eaten everything and were now full. We had seen the sons of two UK legends share a ring and give it their all for 12 rounds and we had seen one of them, Chris Eubank Jnr, receive a deserved decision victory at the fight’s conclusion. There was, in the view of most, no controversy on that front, nor, despite the exciting nature of the fight, a great desire to see these two famous sons do it all again.
Worse, the two men involved had played every trick, said every line, and used every nugget of nostalgia. It didn’t matter how good fight one turned out to be, the biggest stumbling block when it came to revisiting the rivalry was the difficulty of now coming up with a fresh angle or storyline for the next instalment.
Think about it. The first two scheduled dates – October 8, 2022, and April 26, 2025 – had it all, if you’re into that kind of thing. The first one had the novelty factor combined with the nostalgia factor. Then, during the week of the fight, there was even some controversy thrown into the mix as a result of those two failed drugs tests. That, for a few days, made the fight headline news and ramped up the interest before eventually common sense prevailed, the fight was called off, and we were all left wondering whether Benn, the promoters, or boxing itself would ever recover from the mess that had been made.
The second date, meanwhile, had everything the first date had only with the added ingredients of time, anticipation and some bubbling animosity. It also had subplots aplenty. Take the will-he-won’t-he element provided by Chris Eubank Snr and the mystery surrounding his absence from all pre-fight events and promotional material. Consider, too, the wonderful meme potential and weaponizing of the innocent egg; the food item linked to Benn’s positive drugs tests for clomiphene and the object with which Eubank Jnr used to beat Benn whenever in his presence.
Indeed, by the time Eubank Jnr quite literally beat Benn with an egg during one of their pre-fight face-offs, it was a sure thing, the fight. Now everybody was talking about it and wanting to understand the significance of the egg and, in turn, the fight. It wasn’t just your dad, who knew their dads, and it wasn’t just your son/younger brother who follows Eddie Hearn on socials. Now the others were asking questions about it, too: mums, uncles, aunts, grandparents; people who have better things to be doing on a Saturday night.
Even those within the sport who fought the temptation to rubberneck had now started to buckle, spin around. It was hard not to. By the time Eubank Jnr and Benn were making their way to Tottenham Hotspur Stadium that night in April, it had become a must-watch event. Throw in the fact that Chris Eubank Snr ended up travelling to the fight and emerged like a WWE wrestler from the same car as his son hours before first bell and now even those who were on the fence, or watching something else, were inclined to park their reservations and check out what craziness might happen next.
As for what did happen next, all you got was the fight – a very good one. It was not the bona fide classic the commentators portrayed it as – it was too low on quality to ever be that – but it was certainly better than it had any right to be given the limitations of the two boxers involved. It was also thoroughly entertaining, with both men going beyond the call of duty and resisting the option to cruise, relax, or think only about the money they were making for one night’s work. In fact, at a time when it is easy to question what is real, the best thing about Eubank Jnr vs Benn in April was that we came away from it under no illusions about the authenticity of their rivalry. This, rest assured, was no fake thing, we learned. Even if it had once been manufactured and forced upon us, which it had been, the weight difference between them was in the end negligible on account of how badly both wanted to win.
Perhaps, six-and-a-half months on, that hunger to impress remains the same; perhaps it is even greater on the part of Benn, the one who lost. But the big question is this: will the hunger to watch the fight still be the same from the audience’s point of view? Is it even possible to make the conclusion of a multi-generational, familial rivalry function as a spin-off rivalry in its own right? Should they have instead stopped at one and thanked their lucky stars that they got away with it?
These questions will all be answered on Saturday night, of course, but in the meantime it’s worth pondering the ways in which Eubank Jnr vs Benn II might surprise us. If now it lacks the drama of the cracked egg and the sight of Eubank Snr stepping out of a car with his boy, one has to ask: what can it offer instead?
1) They know each other now
Though many will point to nervous energy as the reason for the frenetic, action-packed start in April, it could also be said that the nervous energy experienced by both men was to blame for some of the messier moments and lack of quality in the fight. This time around, with the getting-to-know-you process already done, it is easier to imagine Eubank Jnr and Benn acting more calmly in one another’s company and trading quantity for quality on the night. Should they both do that, there is then a greater chance that one of the two will win this rematch decisively and perhaps not have to rely on three judges at the end of it all.
2) Desperate measures
Although it might contradict point one, there can be no denying that the desperation to win has only increased with the passing of time. In the case of Benn, he cannot stomach the thought of losing twice to Eubank Jnr, whereas for Eubank Jnr winning is no less vital, though the feeling, for him, is not so much desperation in the traditional sense as something closer to panic. He knows, at the age of 36, that he doesn’t have too many fights left and would hate for Father Time to tap him on the shoulder while in the ring with the opponent he dislikes more than any other.
3) A better Benn
You can claim it was all his own doing, but Benn clearly lacked activity and momentum ahead of that first fight with Eubank Jnr. In fact, Benn had had just two fights in three years prior to April’s bout and those were against Rodolfo Orozco and Peter Dobson, two relative unknowns. Not only that, they were opponents designed for Benn to beat and represented a level of competition way beneath the level at which Benn was winning prior to his two failed drugs tests. It would have come as no surprise, therefore, if he felt a little rusty in the ring against Eubank Jnr, or simply out of practice. It would have explained his lack of timing and any lapse in concentration or defence, as well as any moment in which Benn felt winded as the fight entered its second half. Expect him to be much sharper next time, in other words.
4) An increased focus
For as much as it helped to sell fight one, could it not be argued that the history and pantomime surrounding April’s encounter served to distract the two boxers from what was really important? Perhaps, on Saturday, they will both feel liberated to be focusing on just a fight, rather than a story, and will be all the better for it. The egg stuff, the drug stuff, the dad stuff, that’s all done, a thing of the past. Now Eubank Jnr and Benn should be able to just stand alone and do what they do best: fight. It may not make the event more popular than the one they staged back in April, but this increased focus on the part of both could end up making the fight itself better.
5) The Eubanks are back together
While their separation was a talking point ahead of fight one, how nice it is to know that this time the rematch can be promoted with the Eubanks, father and son, in harmony. This time there will be no big reveal on the night, nor will Nigel Benn, Conor’s father, be left wondering why he should be the sole representative of the original Benn-Eubank blockbusters in the 1990s. Instead, Eubank Snr will presumably make an appearance ahead of Saturday’s fight – at either the press conference or the weigh-in – and there will even be a BBC 3 documentary, The Eubanks: Like Father, Like Son, aired on Tuesday at 9pm. Maybe now, with everybody cooperating and pulling together for the greater good, we can get this Benn-Eubank rivalry put to bed once and for all. Wouldn’t that be nice?
