HOURS after they met in the boxing ring for the first time, in April this year, a bruised Conor Benn said of victor Chris Eubank Junior: “I want my revenge.”
If this sounds like something from a Mafia blood feud, the Benn-Eubank rivalry is perhaps the sporting equivalent.
Now, 35 years after their legendary boxer dads went into brutal combat for the first of their two showpiece clashes, Conor, 29, and Chris Junior, 36, will tomorrow square up for their own second showdown, before 67,000 baying fight fans.
Incubated over years of loathing, the score so far between the two families is 2-0 to the Eubanks, with one draw — and this weekend there will be no world titles at stake, just precious family honour.
So, why has such bitterness festered down the decades?
It all began on November 18, 1990.
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Margaret Thatcher was then Prime Minister, few people had mobile phones and Ghost, starring Patrick Swayze, was No1 at the cinema.
In the ring at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre were Nigel “The Dark Destroyer” Benn and Chris “Simply The Best” Eubank.
Explosive Benn, then 26, was WBO world middleweight champion and a fan favourite.
Eubank, 24, was the preening, flamboyant upstart.
The usual trash talk before a big fight seemed to have a genuinely malicious edge.
Earl Grey-sipping Eubank, who liked to quote philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, said of Benn: “I find the man intolerable. He has no class.”
Comparing the two fighters, Eubank jibed: “It is like two minds which are miles apart — a street brain and a society brain.”
Porsches and Cadillacs
Benn, for his part, declared: “I personally do hate him.”
When Eubank said Benn would “end up working in a nightclub”, all hell broke loose.
Benn, an ex-soldier who served in Northern Ireland, replied: “I will f***ing kill you.”
Little wonder, then, that the fight was so furious.
Even as Eubank walked to the ring, to Tina Turner’s The Best, a surprise awaited him as the tune cut out in an act of sabotage designed to unsettle him.
He continued on his way, crowd cheering, and vaulted the ring ropes.
But straight after the bell, he darted sideways before turning and striking Benn with a failed attempt at an early knockout.
In the fourth round, Eubank was hit by an uppercut and bit his tongue.
But, swallowing blood to avert a stoppage, he recovered with a series of big shots that, by the end of the fifth, had shut Benn’s swollen eye.
Eubank was then floored in the eighth.
He told the referee he had slipped but was given an eight-count before the fight was waved on.
In the ninth, Benn sent Eubank to the canvas again, with a left hook.
But he was back on his feet quickly, to unleash a flurry of punches so furious that the referee finally called time on the fight.
Writing in Boxing News, respected journalist Harry Mullan hailed it as “the most thrilling contest I have ever watched in a British ring.”
Eubank would say of the after-effects: “I urinated blood for two or three days.”
The public demanded a rematch but had to wait until October 9, 1993, for what was billed as Judgment Day.
More than 42,000 crammed into Manchester United’s Old Trafford stadium, and this time Eubank’s walk-on went without a hitch.
There was real antipathy and ill-will there. But what fights, what fights!
Irish former world champion Barry McGuigan on the fathers’ fights
As he hurdled the ropes, ITV’s “voice of boxing” Reg Gutteridge told viewers: “The ego has landed.”
The hatred remained but the fight was not as brutal as their first.
How could it have been?
Starting the final round, both men knew they had to step it up to take the contest — and went toe-to-toe with bruising blows.
At the final bell, Gutteridge described the pair as “magnificent warriors” — and the bout was declared a draw.
A third fight, at Wembley Stadium, was mooted but never materialised.
Irish former world champion Barry McGuigan said of the rivalry: “There was real antipathy and ill-will there.
“But what fights, what fights!”
Fast-forward three decades and the hostility had passed on to their sons.
But what drew Conor and Chris Junior to the brutality of the ring, after both grew up rich?
Conor spent most of his childhood in a gated, eight-bedroom mansion in Mallorca with Porsches and Cadillacs on the driveway.
He said: “I had a Jacuzzi in my room and my own balcony with a view of the sea.
“I lived a very blessed life.”
It was all paid for by his now 61-year-old dad’s glory days in the ring.
But Nigel — who became a born-again Christian after a life of drugs, drink, women and parties — tried to persuade his son not to box.
“My dad didn’t want me to fight. He said, ‘There’s no struggle in your life. Why find some?’”
But after a troubled patch in his teens, railing against a strictly religious upbringing, he saw his dad as a role model, and followed him into the ring.
Dad-of-two Conor said: “If I can be half the man my dad is, I’ll be very happy.”
Meanwhile Chris Junior, whose secret long-term girlfriend is expecting twins, also had a pampered childhood, thanks to his now 58-year-old father.
But raised in Brighton, for years he was unaware of his dad’s sporting feats.
He told this year’s BBC documentary The Eubanks: Like Father, Like Son: “Kids used to come up to me, ‘Oh, your dad’s the famous boxer.’
“I was like, ‘Yeah’, but didn’t really know what that meant. I wasn’t allowed to watch his fights.
“It wasn’t till I was ten or 11, I went to a friend’s for a sleepover, I was going through their VHS tapes and my old man and Nigel Benn are on the front of one.
“I popped it in and that was my introduction.”
The Eubank-Benn rivalry inspired Chris Junior to take up the sport after two years of pleading with his dad.
Chris Senior warned him that he was “walking into hell”.
But he coached his son to a series of pro victories.
After losing a bout in 2019, Junior decided to “be my own man”, without his dad as coach.
Chris Senior later revealed: “I was hurt — deeply, deeply, deeply.”
Then the next generation Benn-Eubank rivalry exploded.
But due to meet at London’s O2 Arena on October 8, 2022, Conor and Chris Junior’s first fight was axed just three days before after Conor was revealed to have failed two drug tests.
Forty eggs a week
He tested positive for trace amounts of clomifene.
It is usually used to treat infertility in women but can also increase testosterone in men when taken as a daily pill, and be used as a performance enhancer.
Benn protested his innocence and fought a two-year battle with anti-doping authorities to clear his name.
Speaking to The Sun, he admitted eating “around 35-40 eggs a week” and believed that or “contamination” explained the failed tests.
Eggs are treated with clomiphene, which can leave trace residues in their yolks.
The World Boxing Council accepted a “highly elevated consumption of eggs” as “a reasonable explanation” for the failed tests.
The Benn-Eubank fight was back on, and set for April 26 this year at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
I’ve never liked him. He’s arrogant, he’s very cold, very awkward.
Conor on Chris Jnr
Then, at a press conference in February all hell broke loose.
The trash talk included Conor saying he would “render unconscious” Chris Junior.
Conor’s dad was in attendance but Chris Senior stayed away — prompting Conor to goad his opponent by saying “his dad doesn’t even like him”.
Chris Junior then slammed an egg into Conor’s face and was grabbed by the throat by Conor’s dad before security stepped in.
Chris Junior later posted: “Apparently egg contamination was the reason for his failed drugs tests.
“So I contaminated him with an egg.”
But unamused Chris Senior said: “Junior, you are smashing an egg against this guy’s face.
“I taught you that?
“That is disgraceful.”
Conor, whose wife Victoria is a model, would say of his opponent: “I’ve never liked him.
“He’s arrogant, he’s very cold, very awkward.
“Maybe we both have a chip on our shoulder because we’re called nepo kids, but other than that we have zero in common.”
On fight day, Chris Senior showed up ringside for his boy — and in another Benn-Eubank thriller, the fight went the full 12 rounds, before all three judges awarded the fight to Chris Junior.
But he was afterwards taken to hospital suffering from severe dehydration, and his dad spent “two nights and three days” by his side.
Junior recalled: “We’d been estranged for four years and when I saw that I knew, ‘OK, he still loves me’.”
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Meanwhile, Conor’s dad told his lad afterwards: “You lost, now you have to go and put it right.”
His chance at vengeance comes tomorrow in a bear-pit rematch, once again at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, as boxing’s great unresolved family rivalry takes its latest turn.
