In his junior year at Harvard, the American poet TS Eliot took boxing lessons. It did not take him long to decide the sport was not for him.
‘I was too slow a mover to be a boxer,’ Eliot reflected. ‘It was much easier to be a poet.’
Given his boxing pedigree, it was never likely Chris Eubank Jr would reach a similar conclusion. Yet, as the son of a former two-division world champion, it is fair to say the 35-year-old could probably have been anything he wanted to be.
Eubank Jr’s upbringing was a world away from that of his father, whose delinquent formative years in east London were a whirlwind of smoking, school suspensions and shoplifting.
Raised in the more genteel environs of Hove, East Sussex, Eubank Jr was privately educated and remained blissfully unaware of his dad’s illustrious past until he was a young teenager, when the parent of a friend showed him a recording of one of Eubank Sr’s fights during a sleepover.
‘There was nothing in my life that made me have to do this,’ Eubank Jr said shortly before overcoming Australia’s Renold Quinlan to become the International Boxing Organisation super-middleweight crown in 2017.
Christopher Eubank Jr, left, is seen with his father, a formative influence in his development, after beating Renold Quinlan of Australia to claim the IBO world super middleweight title in 2017
Eubank Sr celebrates after retaining his WBC super middleweight crown by virtue of a draw with old foe Nigel Benn, whom he had beaten three years earlier, at Old Trafford in 1993
After a fractious face-off at their press conference in February, Chris Eubank Jr, left, and Conor Benn, right, squared up relatively peacefully this week
‘I was comfortable as a kid growing up. I had everything I needed.
‘If you look at champions, they came from nothing. That’s where they get their drive and determination and hunger. They know they have no other option to succeed, because they had nothing. I had everything.
‘So people look at that and ask: why and how did you become so successful in boxing, when there are so many other avenues you could have travelled?’
In a storybook world, the definitive answer would come on Saturday night, when Eubank Jr will face Conor Benn at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in a fight of multiple subplots – not least Eubank Jr’s failure to make weight on Friday.
It will be an undeniably evocative evening, rekindling memories of the two brutal contests fought by the combatants’ fathers in the 1990s during a golden age for British boxing.
Yet for many, not least Eubank Sr himself, the idea that now and then are somehow converging – the notion that a legacy is being honoured, that time present and time past are colliding to make time future, as Eliot might have had it – is nothing more than a hollow illusion.
Chris Eubank Snr has not appeared in his son’s corner since 2019 and made headlines by agreeing with those who called the 34-year-old a ‘charlatan’ after his defeat by Liam Smith
Chris Eubank Jr is seen shadow boxing ahead of his meeting with Conor Benn on Saturday
‘My dad and I are in a weird and place in our lives at the moment,’ Eubank Jnr said last year, well before more recent controversies sparked a further downturn in their relationship
When Eubank Sr and Nigel Benn crossed swords, first in a brutal 1990 clash won by Eubank and then again three years later when a draw was declared, they did so as the outstanding British middleweights of their generation and two of the very best in the world.
Quite different, then, to the confected clash between Eubank Jr, a middleweight who has won all but three of his 37 bouts, and Benn, an undefeated 28-year-old welterweight.
Benn, who is coming up two weight classes for the contest, tipped the scales at 156.4lb on Friday. But Eubank Jr, who missed the middleweight limit of 11st 6lb (160lbs) by less than an ounce, must now be careful about how many pounds he gains before Saturday night.
A rehydration clause stipulates that neither fighter can put on more than 10lb between the weigh-in and the commencement of hostilities.
Eubank Jr, who said he was would be paid a separate fee to observe the rule but now faces a $500,000 (£375,00) fine for failing to come in below the upper limit, has admitted the proviso leaves him in ‘uncharted territory’.
He is in line to receive 60 per cent of the reported £18 million purse – but his father believes nothing is worth contesting what he sees as a dangerous bout.
Eubank Jnr has said he bears no hostility towards his father, but wants his own independence
Chris Eubank Sr, seen her arriving at an event in London in 2003, has never been reticent when it comes to expressing his views
In fact, Eubank Sr’s anxiety not to see his son hurt – heightened by the death of his son Sebastian, who drowned after suffering a heart attack while swimming in the sea in Dubai in 2021 – means he will not be in his son’s corner come fight night.
‘Of course he’s scared of losing another son,’ said Eubank Jr. ‘But this is my life. I can’t stop my dreams because he’s worried about what will happen to me. I understand it. But I can’t stop what I am destined to do.’
While Junior may appreciate his father’s position, the same does not apply in reverse.
‘I will not be an accomplice to their stupidity, to their circus,’ Eubank Sr, who has reportedly not spoken to his son for six weeks, told boxing channel Seconds Out.
‘What’s happening is against the rules, [Benn’s] 147[lbs] against [Eubank Jr’s] 160[lbs] is against the rules.
‘When [former welterweight] Kell Brook was made to fight [middleweight Gennadiy Gennadyevich Golovkin], it was against the rules – and that boy had his eye socket smashed.
Chris Eubank Sr has called for the fight to be banned as he is worried about potential brain damage
‘This is what happens. To the promoters, it’s just a game. But to the warriors, it’s a way of life.’
Eubank Sr, whose brutal 1991 fight against Michael Watson left his fellow British middleweight with irreparable brain damage and partial paralysis, knows whereof he speaks. Many will feel that Friday’s events have added credence to his long-held misgivings.
‘The rules have to be adhered to,’ said Eubank Sr. ‘If the rules are abided by, we don’t have to talk about rehydration clauses.
‘I see my son, I see the mistakes that he’s walking into, only looking at the money. The money will get you killed.
‘If you’re not clever, and if you’re not noble, this will kill you, this vocation.’
Eubank Jr is no more oblivious to the dangers of the not-always noble art than his father. In 2016, his British middleweight title win over Nick Blackwell culminated with the latter’s admission to hospital with a bleed on the brain.
Michael Watson, right, suffered brain damage after his 1991 rematch with Eubank Sr, who has expressed concern his Junior or Benn could suffer a similar fate if their fight goes ahead
Conor Benn has goaded Eubank Jr in the acrimonious buildup to the fight, calling him ‘fat boy’
Eubank Sr, hitherto a guiding light in his son’s career, urged the fighter to ease his onslaught in the latter stages of that fight, fearful lest further punches to the head should cause Blackwell irreparable damage.
On Saturday, though, Eubank Jr will have to make do without the ringside expertise of the man so central to his early development as a boxer. It is a reality to which he has become inured.
‘My dad and I are in a weird and somewhat strange place in our lives at the moment,’ Eubank Jnr said last September, well before more recent controversies sparked a further downturn in their relationship.
‘It’s very hard to go through an entire career being with your old man, and then to not have him around any more in terms of the boxing side of things.
‘I think this situation will probably continue for a while. I think it will take me retiring for us to be able to kind of just become father and son, because at the moment, he can’t separate business and boxing from just being my dad.
‘I said to him I don’t need advice. I don’t need a coach. I don’t need a mentor. I just need a dad. But he can’t do that. He’s still trying to figure that dynamic out, so I’ve just got to let him go, let him do his thing.’
Eubank Jr hit Benn with an egg at their launch press conference in February, since when both men have emphasised the personal nature of the fight
Chris Eubank Sr is pictured with an infant Junior. The pair would bond through boxing, but it now represents a source of division between them
The painful reality for both men is that the sport through which they bonded – ‘He guided me, he helped me, he stuck by me through the early stages,’ Eubank Jr has acknowledged – now represents a source of division.
The fault lines in their relationship have been further exposed by the deep animosity between Eubank Jr and Benn, an echo of the the all-encompassing hostility of their fathers before them.
Infamously, Saturday’s showdown was originally scheduled to take place at London’s O2 Arena in October 2022, only to be scrapped at the 11th hour after it emerged Benn had twice failed drugs tests.
After a lengthy battle against an on-again, off-again ban, Benn was finally cleared to return to the sport last November.
But Eubank Jr has made plain his disdain for his rival, whose ‘highly elevated consumption’ of eggs was blamed for the presence of trace amounts of clomiphene, a fertility drug known to elevate testosterone levels in men, in his urine.
‘I believe lifetime bans would stop drug cheats in boxing completely,’ he said. ‘As soon as the first couple guys get lifetime bands, imagine how many people would immediately never take performance enhancing drugs again, ever.
‘I know it doesn’t make sense to most people. They ask, “Why are you fighting him if you feel like that?” But he’s going to fight anyway. That’s the reality. So if I beat him, I beat a man who had every chance to cheat and still couldn’t win. It shows the difference.’
For Eubank Sr, however, his son’s attempt to tread the moral high ground came to grief when he cracked an egg against Benn’s face during a face-off at a pre-fight press conference in February.
While Junior, who was fined £100,000, subsequently defended his actions – ‘Me throwing an egg at somebody that claims that is the reason why he failed two drugs tests, because of contaminated eggs, I think that’s light,’ he said – his dad was having none of it.
‘Junior, you’re smashing an egg against this guy’s face,’ said Eubank. ‘I didn’t teach you that. Who taught you that?
‘That’s disgraceful. I’m going to stay in your corner? You must be mad. I would never be in your corner.
‘You’re a disgrace. You’re smashing an egg in someone’s face and then you’re trying to justify it. There’s no justification for that.’
Regardless of whether his father shows on the night, Eubank Jr has a fight to win. Determined as he is to forge his own path, it is one he would rather face with his dad at his side.
Chris Eubank Jr believes boxing has lost its moral compass. If every fighter who ever cheated was banned, he says, half the sport would disappear
The Eubanks are seen during a media workout at Cheetahs Gym in Brighton in 2015. Their relationship has since taken a downward turn, with father branding son a ‘disgrace’
‘He doesn’t need to say anything,’ said Junior. ‘He just needs to be there for me. That’s what would make me happy. It’s not about words. It’s about presence. It’s about showing up for me.’
The irony is that, in times past, such sentiments would have struck an immediate chord with his father.
‘His boxing life will be better protected if his father is involved with him, because his father will protect him against the things which happen to him,’ Eubank Sr said of Benn at a fractious press conference in 2016.
‘When the father is close, the fighter is better protected.’
Eubank Sr was alluding to the absence of Nigel Benn before their sons’ appearance on an Anthony Joshua undercard.
Now, though, the shoe is on the other foot. In midweek, it was the turn of the 58-year-old’s former rival to wish things were otherwise.
‘I’m so sad Chris is not here, it’s a family affair, I don’t like to see a father and son fall out publicly,’ said Nigel.
‘Sort out your issues behind closed doors and make up. I wish Chris didn’t say that about his son publicly.
‘Regardless of him smashing the egg, he’s not a disgrace, he’s done really well for himself.
‘[Eubank Sr] shouldn’t be saying that in public about his son, and I’m sad about that. I wish Chris backed his son.’
It is a wish shared by Eubank Jr.
‘The ball is in his court,’ he said. ‘I’ll do what I have to do on fight night, but I think it’ll be a huge shame [if his father fails to attend]. It will be something he’ll regret in years to come.’
It would seem these warring families, perhaps unsurprisingly, have more in common than meets the eye.
