The conversation — or, more accurately, the monologue — begins with imagined swaying palm trees and ends with remembering the rust-like taste of an opponent’s blood.
In the intertwining half hour, Chris Eubank rants, rails and reminisces as that opponent, Nigel Benn, looks on from the other side of a computer screen like the long-suffering relative of a dotty uncle.
The conversation begins with those palm trees, which Eubank, for reasons which never quite become clear, says he sees, rather than the bookcase he is actually looking at.
Benn does not even bat an eyelid. It was not always this way. Benn once professed his outright hatred for Eubank before their first fight in 1990, which was reportedly watched by half a billion people. And that loathing had not much diminished by the time of their next bout, three years later.
Once foes, now friends, they are being reunited for a speaking tour next month, starting in Southend and ending in Hartlepool, to relive that rivalry. Were they paid on how much they speak, Benn is all too aware he would miss out financially by some margin.
After a previous failed attempt to butt in, Benn says: “Chris, you keep talking. I still get paid the same. But I love Chris talking. Sometimes he just talks and lets me say a word here and there. Genuinely, it’s brilliant and I really enjoy it.”
On the evidence of a brief snapshot of their conversations, no night of the tour is likely to ever be the same, so quickly does the subject matter change. Keeping up is no mean feat. And amid the backdrop of the tour is the subject of their sons: Chris Jr and Conor fight on October 8 at the O2, to which the conversation quickly turns after the initial Eubank Sr detours and then dominates.
Eubank’s main concern is the fact his son has defied his own advice to sign a contract whereby he goes down in weight to 157lbs. His objections begin as slightly comical before becoming deeply emotive and then finally pleading.
At its heart is a fear of the damage that might befall his son, having lost another, Sebastian, to a heart attack while in Dubai last year.
“This is insane, it can’t happen,” says Eubank. “I’ve already lost one son. When I lost him, I cried, I bawled in private. The love I have for Sebastian is the same for Christopher. I am the father and I say this fight cannot happen.
“This is not just a game to make a big splash. This is life and death. Gerald McClellan is real, Nigel you did that to him. I did that to Michael Watson, I didn’t want to do that. You can’t do this to my son.”
Both McClellan and Watson suffered devastating, life-changing injuries in the ring at the hands of Benn and Eubank respectively. Neither fighter obviously wants a repeat, and Eubank is pushing — unsuccessfully for now — to have the fight called off with immediate effect by offering £300,000 to get the contract ripped up.
But when given the time to talk, Benn says: “We’re in the fight business. It was your son that made the decision, stop blaming everyone else. Your son made the decision, he’s 32 years old. You say it’s life and death, but it’s also a sport and we all chose it to give us a good life and status. I’m not going in there to maim the guy, but it is a contact sport. The fight’s been made and the contract signed.”
The conversation then quickly goes off on another tangent, as the fighters decide the mediator of the interview looks like a character from The Young Ones before they quickly revert back to their own boxing days.
Benn regrets having used the word ‘hate’ to describe Eubank, blaming his immaturity back then. “We didn’t need hate, as we had a good rivalry — and I still think half a billion people would have watched the fight without me saying that,” he says.
Is there a danger that the next generation of Benns and Eubanks fighting causes a fresh rift in their friendship?
Benn says not: “If Eubank Jr wins, it changes absolutely nothing for me. I think it adds some spice to the tour, one will be a winner and one will be a loser, but it’s still not going to take away from our great careers.”
Whatever happens, the pair will always be indelibly, brutally linked by what played out between them in the ring. And it is a bond Eubank uses one final time to get their offspring’s fight called off between now and its October date.
“The love I have for you is beyond the measure of your thinking,” he says. “I know who you are, I have tasted your blood — it tastes like rust — and smelled it on you. I am the warrior, I’ve proven it. But protect my son, my king, let him go and have his career.”
