“There wasn’t much thinking,” Conor Benn admits, mentally transporting himself back to 26 April, Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, and an 18ft x 18ft ring. “It was just pure rage. I just wanted to flatten him.” Benn is, of course, referring to Chris Eubank Jr, a man who was born to be Benn’s rival.
One could convincingly argue so, anyway. Given Nigel Benn and Eubank Sr’s gripping grudge in the 1990s, their sons’ own rivalry really is a blood feud. A blood feud that ultimately birthed a bloody, draining fight, as Eubank Jr continued his family’s superiority over the Benns by edging past Conor. It was an exhibition of true sporting melodrama, following slaps with eggs, weigh-in scares, and Eubank Sr’s last-gasp arrival. Yet, for Benn, it could have been so different on that spring evening in the English capital.
