Conor Benn can only restore his reputation in the eyes of the British public if he serves a ban for the positive test which ultimately ‘prohibited’ his proposed fight with Chris Eubank Jr. That is the opinion of Eddie Hearn, who accepts he made mistakes in the handling of the situation but accused the British Boxing Board of Control of dragging their heels on a decision.
Benn’s promoter also insisted he had no power to cancel the fight himself and required either Team Eubank or the Board to pull the trigger. He admits he may alter future fight contracts to prevent a similar situation from arising again.
More than three weeks have passed since the Board indicated that the highly anticipated family grudge match would not be sanctioned as an adverse finding in one of Benn’s VADA tests made doing so outside ‘the interests of boxing’.
But only now is an accurate picture of the events that led to their decision beginning to form. In a private room at a high-end restaurant just off London’s Marylebone High Street, the promoter of the fight that never was, Hearn, held court in a bid to explain how one of the country’s biggest stars wound up with the banned substance clomifene in his system - and why the fight still nearly carried on regardless.
It was the Wednesday of fight week when the Board released their statement but, by that point, Benn was already at the public workout to help promote the fight. It took more than 24 hours for Hearn and their co-promoters Wasserman to confirm that the show would be postponed.
But Hearn says a huge amount of trouble - and money - would have been saved if the Board had acted on the information they received nearly two weeks earlier.
“From the 23rd of September we get analysis from the labs,” Hearn says of the adverse analytical finding in Benn’s test. “That is shared with both teams, the Eubank team decided they were happy to proceed with the bout, we told Robert Smith, the general secretary of the Board, that and then said ‘you’re the governing body, what are you going to do?’
“They go quiet for 5-6 days, make their decision on Tuesday night and then send it to us on Wednesday morning. All of a sudden, we’re like ‘wow’.
“Before that, the Board had gone quiet. They requested information, got it all from VADA, and we even asked to have a hearing. Because in our situation I would much rather have a hearing and get cleared to fight because it almost covers us.
“I’m not throwing Robert under the bus, he’s a good bloke. But we went through this with Billy Joe [Saunders] when they didn’t suspend him and let him fight a few years back. There was correspondence from the board that said ‘we do not acknowledge VADA results’. They didn’t ban him because they don’t acknowledge VADA.”
It is crucial to point out that Benn passed all of his UKAD tests conducted during the same period. At the time of the adverse finding in the VADA test, Benn also had a pending UKAD one too conducted around the same time. That also came back negative.
The confusion was a result of the Board adhering to UKAD test results and not necessarily VADA, although they did act eventually. Hearn, although insisting he was not passing the buck, believes that lack of cohesion caused huge problems in this process.
“Robert Smith says ultimately they adhere to UKAD and don’t really take note of VADA,” Hearn adds. “We put it in the hands of the board and said ‘are you going to sanction it?’
“That’s why you have a governing body. In that instance, contractually I can’t cancel the fight. Legally you can’t. You have to put it in someone’s hands to make a decision. Chris Eubank has the right when there is an adverse finding to terminate the contract.
“I just feel like, ultimately, the Board should have acted quicker or they should have had a hearing to determine whether or not Conor Benn should be allowed to fight.
“If the Board sanction the fight and Eubank Jr wants to proceed with the fight… at that point it’s in the Board’s hands - we say it’s on you. Are we going to have a hearing? Are you going to sanction the fight.
“The disappointing thing looking back, because it ended up costing money, I wish they had decided what they wanted to do sooner. They wouldn’t make a decision after receiving the information.
“In the madness that was unfolding you have to let the Board decide. In this instance, they’ve eventually acknowledged the VADA decision and made their decision. The cloudiness of whether you do accept VADA testing or not has been removed. It has been removed. Because they have done it here.”
In the hours that followed this interview, the Board released a statement stating that Benn voluntarily relinquished his licence with them. On October 17, he had been called to attend a hearing on the 21st to deal with allegations of misconduct but on the morning of the hearing, at which he was ‘legally represented’ he let them know of his decision to relinquish his licence.
So where does all of this leave Benn? The 26-year-old welterweight has been steadily emerging as one of the biggest commercial commodities in British boxing over the last few years, which have been punctuated by a series of impressive displays. Rightly or wrongly, this failed test will now follow him for the rest of his career.
The party line appears to be that there must have been contamination somewhere along the testing process - and that the tiny amount of the substance that was found in his system means this was not consumed in the pursuit of illegal physical gains. Hearn insists all of this will be explained in the coming weeks by Benn and his team of legal and medical experts who are currently manufacturing a media campaign which will attempt to explain all - and to clear his name.
Hearn, though, believes some sort of punishment is required if he ever wants to be forgiven.
“At the moment he’s clear to fight anywhere in the world with anyone that will sanction him which is about 90% of the governing bodies right now,” Hearn adds.
“The most important thing for me is that he has a hearing of some kind and ultimately someone decides, outside of Matchroom, if he’s banned, where he’s going to be allowed to fight etc.
“He’s got a very difficult job to clear his name but I just want the process to speed up because if he has to serve a ban, I would like that ban to be served as soon as possible.
“We’re not involved with his defence, I’m not involved with any processes at all, we support him, I believe him, but he has to go and fight this fight on his own
“I believe he’s innocent but, at the same time, you have to take responsibility whether you’ve been unlucky or not that something has been found in your system.
“So with what I know and believe, the purpose of the ban is more to suppress the public feeling and media around this situation. I don’t think the public would be happy, if you can’t nail a specific contamination issue or whatever it is, I think the response would be, ‘he’s got off’.
“If he’s innocent and if there is a reason for that innocence, he shouldn’t really serve a ban, but I do feel like if he’s cleared then because of the enormity of the public focus of this situation, I don’t think anyone would accept that.”
