Chris Eubank Jr sits in his hotel room, locked in the extremes of a savage weight cut. Boiling down in weight gets even harder at the age of 35 but the words still flow freely. Eubank Jr can produce intelligent insights as easily as he churns out typical bombast and so he has no difficulty in explaining why his fight on Saturday night with Conor Benn will darken the British sporting landscape this week.
They were first meant to fight in October 2022, when a manufactured scrap was built on the enmity between their fathers, Chris Eubank Sr and Nigel Benn, in the 1990s. Separated by two weight divisions, the sons were brought together in a dubious catchweight contest while banging on about family feuds and legacies.
Those lucrative plans were ruined when Benn tested positive for clomifene on two separate occasions. Despite embarrassing attempts to proceed with the bout it was eventually cancelled on the Thursday of fight week.
Two and a half years on, they will walk to the ring at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium rather than at the original venue of the O2. Eubank Jr calmly outlines why they need space for three times as many spectators: “For better or worse, controversy, drama and scandal sells. This is what this fight has been bathed in over the last few years. People are invested in not only the story of our fathers having two of the best British bouts of all time more than 30 years ago. They’re invested in the story of me and Conor because it’s now and it’s real.
“The first fight we were fighting for our fathers and our family name. Now it’s about all the things that have gone on between me and Conor. That beef has captured the imagination and we’re going to fill a 62,000-person stadium.”
There was never much grace between their fathers but the sons have reached new lows. Benn has refused for more than two years to share “scientific” information which he says clears him of intentionally taking clomifene. Meanwhile, the WBC suggested that clomifene appeared twice in Benn’s system because he ate too many eggs – but the boxer himself refused to accept the findings of the sanctioning body and stressed that egg consumption was not the reason. At a recent press conference, Eubank Jr smashed an egg against Benn.
“The egg was meant to embarrass him,” Eubank Jr tells me. “It was meant to make an example of him. It was meant to make sure that his cheating will never be forgotten. There are so many active fighters that have been caught cheating and are now still fighting and no one says anything about it. I couldn’t let that be the case with this man. I needed to make sure I did something so he would be remembered for ever as the cheat that he is and he would never be able to play it down – which is what they were trying to do. ‘Oh, he’s cleared, he spent £1m on proving his innocence.’ No. He was cleared to fight. But cleared of having performance-enhancing drugs in his system? That’s very different. Conor is not cleared of being a cheat.”
In his two fights before the drugs controversy, Benn looked sensational when stopping seasoned but essentially washed-up veterans in Chris Algieri and Chris van Heerden. In his subsequent bouts Benn has looked distinctly average during a couple of unimpressive points victories against obscure opponents.
“There’s nothing to be suspicious of,” Eubank Jr says. “The facts are that the drugs were found in his system. Eddie Hearn, naturally, tried to cover it up and make the fight go ahead. They knew the whole time that he’d failed these two drug tests. So there are no suspicions. He is a cheat.”
Benn has always insisted on his innocence and the WBC report said there was no conclusive evidence that he had “engaged in intentional or knowing ingestion” of clomifene. He has also never failed a UK Anti-Doping test. But his positive results emerged in two Voluntary Anti-Doping Association tests. How often have Vada and Ukad testers visited Eubank Jr in the buildup to this fight? “Every week. Getting woken up at 6am, 7am, urine tests, blood tests, it’s been relentless. But that’s what happens when such a huge fight is mired with scandal and drug cheating. You have to deal with that.”
When I last interviewed Eubank Jr in 2023 he said: “[Benn’s] done wrong by me. So he’s lost all his privileges and bartering power. There are no weight clauses now. There are no rehydration limits.”
That quote came in reference to the fact that, the previous year, they had agreed to weigh in at 157lb and Eubank would scale no more than an additional seven pounds on the morning of the fight. Logic suggests that Benn, as a welterweight who usually weighs 147lb, would be at a gross disadvantage in fighting a bigger man who is at his best in the 168lb super-middleweight division. But the rehydration clause is dangerous and prevents a fighter from fully recovering and taking on enough food and water to protect himself from fatigue and the threat of brain damage.
Even though the 2022 fight had been cancelled, Eubank Jr still made weight on the scheduled day to prove a point. Photographs of his emaciated frame were disturbing and the dangers remain despite Friday’s weigh-in carrying a 160lb limit with Eubank allowed to add 10 pounds, about half of what he usually gains, on Saturday morning.
“They are paying me a separate fee to restrict my weight gain and rehydration,” Eubank says. “I was never going to do it for free.”
Benn has since claimed that Eubank Jr’s team mentioned the rehydration clause first. Eubank Jr dismisses this. “Why would I think: ‘Let me make this harder on myself and restrict my weight gain after a weigh-in for no reason?’”
He remembers that “another thing happened between me and Conor. We hadn’t been face to face for a long time. He chose to grow some balls and push me on the day that I was cutting weight for my previous fight [last October in Saudi Arabia]. He knew I was very weak and, because I’m boxing the next day, I’m not about to get in a fight with him. That shows you the character of Benn and Hearn, who was right next to him.”
Eubank Jr initially rejects concerns about the weight cut. “I’ve been doing this for so many years and know my body. It can be horrific but it’s part of what fighters sign up for. If we’re going to make all this money, you have to make sacrifices. One of those sacrifices is starving yourself, dehydrating yourself, pulling yourself down to an extremely uncomfortable weight.”
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I recently interviewed Peter Hamlyn, the neurosurgeon who operated seven times on Michael Watson after his fight with Eubank Sr in 1991. Watson is still severely damaged and Hamlyn was shocked when I outlined the rehydration stipulations for Saturday.
Eubank Jr listens quietly as I read these words from Hamlyn: “Unless you’re fit, which includes being properly hydrated, you shouldn’t be boxing. And if you’ve engineered a situation where somebody isn’t fully fit, it’s not a sensible idea. A boxer is at maximum risk when they’re fatigued … and not able to defend themselves.”
He pauses before replying: “I understand and accept the risks. I am a man that enjoys a challenge, even a dangerous one. I believe my skills are far superior to Conor’s, so I can give myself the disadvantage of restricting my rehydration. But the doctor you spoke to is absolutely right. I probably shouldn’t be doing it. But we are the daredevils of sport. We do things that we shouldn’t do. This is not a normal life we are living, punching each other as hard as we can in the head and body. But it’s what we love, it’s what we train for as professionals, and I am very confident.”
What happens if Eubank Jr decides not to adhere to the rehydration clause? “I can change my mind at any time but it will cost me a substantial amount of money. I don’t want to lose $1m so I’m pretty sure I’m going to stick to it.”
He has lost the support of his father, who has castigated Eubank Jr as “a disgrace” and for risking his health. The boxer believes his relationship with his dad will only heal once he retires from the ring. “Unfortunately, that looks like the case. But maybe after I prove what I’m capable of against Benn it will be enough to win him over. I have no idea.”
When did they last talk? “We met briefly at my cousin Harlem Eubank’s fight [six weeks ago]. There were some ups, some downs. But since then we’ve had no communication and he’s obviously spoken out about how he is against this fight and wants to stop it. So it looks like I’ll be on my own on the night.”
Does Eubank Jr understand why his dad is so emotional? “No. There’s nothing that can really justify his views. He should be with me. But he has his issues and I’ve got to accept it. I can’t let anything get in the way of completing the mission.”
Eubank Jr softens when he remembers his brother, Sebastian, who suffered a heart attack and drowned in 2021, and the son he left behind. “When I’m in the UAE I spend a lot of time with Raheem,” he says of his nephew. “He comes and stays with me. I take him to the park and the mall and we go roller‑skating and swimming. He is a very special human being and gives me a happiness I’ve never really experienced before.”
He first met Raheem at Seb’s graveside. “We were in the desert and the cemeteries in the Middle East are not like the UK. In the Muslim community everybody is equal and the graves are very close together and they’re just buried in the sand. So it was a very shocking place and, at the grave, Raheem’s mother passed him to me. He couldn’t have been more than six months old but he looked just like my brother. I held him and he was completely silent the whole time. In the despair and horror he gave me such calm. It made me think: ‘We’ve lost my brother but we’ve got a second chance with this young boy in my arms.’”
Eubank Jr speaks more about Raheem in moving ways but we cannot shake the week that lies ahead. “The business side of boxing is despicable,” he stresses, “but the sport is noble.”
That’s often true and so I ask a simple question. Does he think that Benn believes he will win? “Sure. He’s undefeated. He doesn’t know how to lose yet. I remember being undefeated and thinking I’d never lose. He has that mindset that he can go out there and slug me. He thinks I’m old and washed up. Oh, he’s made a mistake thinking that.”
Eubank Jr makes one last emphatic statement: “I’ve said before that if I can’t beat Conor Benn, I’ll retire. So I’ve got to do everything I can to win, because I do not want to retire. I love boxing. I love the sport. So this is a deathly important fight for me.”