CHRIS EUBANK JR is so proud to be giving his dad twin grandsons – but is determined to parent his boys completely differently.
The 59-year-old British ring legend ruled his children with an iron fist, raised them with tough love and, in new BBC doc Eubanks: Like Father, Like Son even boasted about parenting with the cane and the belt.
At the end of the emotional hour-long show, 36-year-old Jr revealed to his dad and idol that his partner is now expecting twin boys.
But – even though the pair settled a four-year feud in April when inflicting another defeat on the Benn family – Junior is desperate to be a very different father.
Junior said: “A lot of kids in the 90s were brought up that way, it was a cultural thing. If a kid stepped out of line, they got smacked.
“I guess the only difference for me was, I was getting smacked by a world champion boxer.
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“I want to be the sort of father who my sons can come and speak to, about anything.
“I couldn’t do that with my old man, I couldn’t, he was too strict.”
The show is a brilliant look at one of the most complicated relationships in British boxing, that has been played out on television, in newspapers, on the radio and all over social media.
Six years ago the pair fell out when Junior axed his dad from his coaching team.
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And their relationship totally collapsed in 2021 when Chris’ brother Sebastian died of a heart attack in Dubai aged just 29.
It has been a long and dark road back to their reformed partnership, that takes on Nigel and Conor Benn again this Saturday at Tottenham.
Chris Eubank Jr vs Conor Benn 2 – all the info
TIME for round two of this generation’s family feud!
Chris Eubank Jr and Conor Benn go punch-for-punch once again as both rivals look to make their fathers proud.
The blockbuster rematch takes place at the 62,000-seater Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Saturday, November 15.
Eubank Jr narrowly outpointed his bitter foe after 12 brutal rounds in April to secure the bragging rights in what was certainly a Fight of the Year contender.
And the two British superstars will dance once more as Eubank Jr aims to do the double while Benn seeks revenge after suffering a first career loss.
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Speaking directly to his dad, Junior explained why he had to take drastic steps that devastated his hero.
“My enemies used you against me,” he said about his early boxing career. “And it made fighting for me extremely difficult, mentally, knowing they could keep prodding and poking me about you.
“And that’s one of the reasons why, a long time ago, I told you I did not want you as a coach.
“It was not because I did want you around or I didn’t love you, or I didn’t like you being next to me.
“You were never a background guy, you always had to be with me and that’s how you were for my entire life.
“It got to a stage where I needed to be myself, I needed to be my own man.
“It wasn’t about you, it was about me.
“In this very specific part of my life, I decided that I needed to have complete control.
“What I went through during that time, is what made me who I am now.
“I will always be your son, but there comes a stage where a son has to walk his own path and I am at that stage now.
“You can’t protect me anymore.”
Father and son teams in boxing can be the most beautiful thing in sport – like the undefeated Calzaghe team of Joe and Enzo.
But there is also a constant danger that the already-combustible relationship is pushed over dangerous boundaries by a sport – and a business – as brutal as boxing.
Looking back now, it seems Junior wished they had kept the two elements separate.
‘I AM THE BOSS NOW’
He explained: “My father knew one way ‘my way or the high way’.
“And, if you break that, that’s it.
“He would talk on my behalf sometimes and it was tough.
“I told him, I am the boss now and I will make my own decisions.
“I still wanted him in my life, of course I did, but I had to do the career on my own.
“He couldn’t accept or handle that, he was used to control and he did like it being taken away.
“He didn’t appreciate it and that caused us to separate and it shouldn’t have.
Read more on the Scottish Sun
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“Boxing and fathers-and-sons should be two separate things.”
Watch Eubanks: Like Father, Like Son on the BBC
