The latest saga in the endless hyping of a bout that should not be happening unfolded in a pantomime atmosphere at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Thursday evening when Chris Eubank Jr and Conor Benn held their final press conference. Eubank Jr would not allow Eddie Hearn, Benn’s promoter, to talk as he constantly interrupted him and pointed out that people wanted to hear from the fighters rather than their salesmen.
It presented an easy victory for Eubank as the normally garrulous Hearn soon retreated from the stage and asked his CEO at MatchroomBoxing, Frank Smith, to take over. Smith is in a relationship with Eubank Jr’s sister, Emily, but his attempts to thank various people were not much more successful.
“If I’m not letting Eddie speak then there is no way you are getting a chance,” Eubank Jr said with droll nonchalance.
Having seen off Benn’s promoters, the 35-year-old turned his attention to Saturday night’s fight and his bitter rival in the ring. “I know what is coming,” he said in his deliberate way. “I prepared my whole life for these moments. I’ve put the time in, dedicated decades to this sport and have done it without cheating or cutting any corners.”
Eubank Jr has goaded Benn persistently about the two positive drug test results he recorded, on separate occasions, which forced the cancellation of their planned first fight in October 2022. The manufactured scrap between Eubank Jr and Benn, who are usually separated by two different weight classes, has been built on the back of two bouts in the early 1990s between their fathers – Nigel Benn and Chris Eubank Sr. Their sons would never have been matched if they had different surnames.
But Eubank Jr is a supreme talker and he insisted that “the mentality I have, the experience, fortitude and will is what I will use on the night to take out Conor Benn”.
His 28-year-old opponent said: “I feel no pressure. This is what I do. This is what I live for … I’m more than prepared, I’m more than ready.”
But Eubank Jr returned to his allegations against Benn. “There is a reason why he had his training camp in Spain. He had to flee this country. He couldn’t handle the pressure of walking the UK streets and have people shouting out ‘drug cheat’ and making egg jokes. He took himself away and thinks he can use me to get back into the good graces [of the public]. I haven’t hid. I’ve been on these streets, I’ve spoken with kids, I’ve done media obligations and have felt the energy on UK streets over the past two months.”
Benn shrugged. “I’m not going to lower myself to Chris and go back and forth. I’m excited to go back in there and put my hands on him on Saturday. We’re not at school now. I don’t need to call him names.”
Eubank Jr sounded suitably stringent. “You will be at school on Saturday. I’m going to be the headmaster and you will be in detention.”
When Benn began to taunt him about the brutal weight cut he had endured, Eubank Jr mused aloud: “The question I ask myself is what is pain …”
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“Oh shut up, Chris,” Benn snapped in amusing exasperation.
“What is pain, though?” Eubank continued as he spoke with sudden depth and pathos. “I have a 31-year-old brother who is buried in the desert in Dubai – that is pain. I have his son, three years old, and he asks: ‘Why can’t I see my daddy? Why can’t he take me to school?’ That is pain. My own father, a man I idolised for my entire life, doesn’t speak to me. We haven’t spoken for years and he thinks I’m a disgrace. These things are what pain is to me.”
He then promised that he is far more determined to beat Benn than he had been in 2022 “before Conor got caught cheating. Now it’s about preparing to get this kid out of boxing. I have a duty to boxing and to fans who he has lied to.”
Benn, meanwhile, added to the circus as he said: “I’m coming to take his head off.”
Two months ago, at an earlier press conference in Manchester, Eubank Jr smashed an egg against Benn’s cheek. His choice of weapon, that small and humble egg, was a barbed reference to the positive tests and claims by others that the presence of clomifene in Benn’s system might have been caused by an excessive consumption of eggs.
This time, just over 48 hours before they meet in the ring, they engaged in a face-off at a safe distance. They held each other’s unblinking gaze for a long time – before disappearing into the darkness with the hope that this long charade might finally produce meaningful drama on Saturday night.