The prefight of the year already has been fought. Conor Benn and Chris Eubank Jr. both made weight Friday in London for their Saturday night rematch at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. As the size of the venue hints, this is a massively anticipated event in England. The actual fight will have a hard time competing with its backstory.
Backstories, rather. This thing’s got storylines for the ages. Among them: A rematch for the middleweight belt! Will Eubank's détente with his dad (and former trainer) hold through the final bell? These fighters just plain don’t like each other, but their fathers don’t like each other even more after their own set of legendary bouts in the 1990s! There's even an angle involving Neymar.
No wonder their fight is expected to fill a football stadium. Again.
On sporting terms alone, Benn vs. Eubank Jr. is appointment viewing for all boxing fans. They already brawled once in the same venue in April. Eubank came out on top on the scorecards, retaining his IBO middleweight title by a unanimous decision. But Benn, who moved up from welterweight for the fight, won over the fans by holding his own with the naturally bigger man. The 12th and final round, featuring non-stop haymakers from both combatants, had the whole stadium rocking and left the fans screaming for more.
What would have already been a huge night for Eubank Jr. turned completely melodramatic when it turned into a reunion with his father, a former world middleweight champ and English national hero who had been estranged from his kid for several years. After Eubank Jr. smashed an egg on Benn’s head during a press conference brouhaha, his father called his own offspring and what happened a "disgrace." But if Eubank Jr. went low, Benn’s camp went lower, needling the abandoned boy about his absentee father throughout the pre-fight promotional tour.
But hold the phones! On fight night, Eubank Sr. suddenly showed up ringside before the opening bell! And cheered his son on to victory!
Then, by god, things got even more emotional. Father and son didn’t get to celebrate the win or their rekindled relationship right away, as Eubank Jr. was carted straight from the stadium to the hospital and spent the next couple days recovering from the damage levied by Benn, exacerbated by the drastic weight cutting tactics he needed to make the 160-pound limit. But his father stayed with him every minute as he convalesced. "He doesn’t leave the hospital. He was sleeping in the hallway," Eubank Jr. told BBC. And while still in his hospital robe, Eubank Sr. let his boy know how proud he was of him.
"I never in my wildest dreams thought I would hear those words come out of his mouth," Eubank Jr. said. "Ever."
I’m not crying! You’re crying! OK, OK, we’re all crying! The Eubankses' tale has all the poignancy of Bruce Springsteen’s Freudian psychodrama
Deliver Me from Nowhere, only with more violence!
When the public clamored for a Eubank Jr.-Benn rematch, Eubank Sr. came out and said he’d rather his son retire than put his life on the line again. The son declined that fatherly counsel, however. "I gotta tell him, 'You look in the mirror. Would you have retired? Would you have said no to such a huge fight?'" Eubank Jr. said. "I don’t think he would."
See, Eubank Sr. knows all about huge fights with guys named Benn. He and Nigel Benn, Conor’s father, both held world middleweight championships in the 1990s, and had wars of their own. Their November 1990 tilt for the WBO middleweight belt is still remembered for its violence. Eubank Sr. was knocked down early and damaged throughout the fight by Benn’s savage body attack, but then he transported Benn into La La Land in the ninth round with a beautiful and brutal sortie of lefts and rights to the noggin to keep his title.
They fought again in 1993, this time to unify the world super middleweight title (168 pounds), and the Benn-favoring crowd that packed Old Trafford stadium in Manchester booed when the fight was called a draw. They never fought in the ring again, but both are remembered fondly by the fight-mad Brits for those bouts.
In fact, Eubank Sr. and Nigel Benn have rekindled their rivalry while following around their kids on the promotional tour to pump up their offspring's Saturday rematch. Nigel Benn hilariously and evilly declared that he had information that Eubank Sr. only showed up to the first fight because he’d been paid to be there. The two old dudes even did a faceoff of their own for photographers at a press conference this week. The promos have been increasingly heated, as the Conor Benn camp has pushed a narrative all year that Eubank Jr. has to keep fighting because he has a £4 million poker debt to soccer god Neymar.
So let’s get it on! Bring on the 13th round! This is gonna be great!!
On a personal note, I’m so excited about this fight that I feel bad about how tough I’ve been on England through the years. I’ve put down the crown for things like centuries of oppression and imperialism and just plain evilness. But as Saturday night will surely show, hell if those fuckers don’t do boxing right. So: Thanks for doing boxing right, fuckers.
