Conor Benn said the hangover of emotion from two failed drug tests carried into his April fight with Chris Eubank Jnr and made him less of a fighter.
Now Benn says he is firing ahead of the Saturday rematch back at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium as they run back their thrilling war.
At tonight’s public workouts, Benn did some light work with trainer Tony Sims and then did some light-hearted shadowboxing with his dad, British boxing legend Nigel.
“I was still healing,” Benn told DAZN of the first bout.
“A weak body can carry a strong body but a strong body can’t carry a weak mind. It’s all up here [pointing to his head]. It’s all mental. I felt 100 per cent; [but] I weren’t right… A lot of hatred, a lot of bitterness, a lot of anger, a lot of spite. Waking up in the morning that was what fuelled me. I’d wake up in the morning angry and go to bed angry. I don’t feel that way now… I’m an emotional guy.”
Benn, 29, said his changes had come through therapy and asking for help.
“I was a broken man, but my priority was to get back in the ring because that was the place that I found peace and it was just hard,” he added. “Mentally, I look back now and I think, ‘Cor, I was in no condition to fight.’”
The fighter, who lost on all three cards in April, was in a jovial mood.
“I feel happy. I might get in there on Saturday and start dancing,” he continued.
Benn said he had learned plenty about himself the first time, including that he could box 12 rounds at a hot pace.
“If I can close the show, I’ll close the show,” Benn added. “Ultimately, I know I can go 12 rounds with a much bigger man but not only throw double the amount of punches, but I was back in the gym on the Sunday. If you look at the damage done in the fight, it felt like I barely took any damage. I didn’t have no DOMs [delayed onset muscle soreness], I weren’t sore, I was ready to go again. I was shouting on the phone to my team, ‘Let’s go again. When can we go again.’ For me, this is my last fight at 160 and then I can’t wait for this [rivalry] to be done, never have to see his face again, never have to hear him again. I can drop down to 147 and pursue the goal me and my trainer and my team set out to achieve, and that was winning the world title.”
Benn has long coveted the WBC belt and said that, should he win on Saturday, he knows there will be calls for a trilogy. But he also acknowledged that another six months at middleweight would hurt his chances of ever seeing 147lbs again.
“I’m set for life. Could I fight again and do the trilogy for greed, or could I fight for a world title? And I don’t think I can live with myself if I pass up on a world title forever,” he said.
In typical “Destroyer” fashion, Benn signed off: “I feel like I took part of his soul that night [in April]. I’m going to take what’s left of it on Saturday."
