Zero to Hero: Chris Eubank Jr. and Conor Benn buck pantomime villain reputation before rematch redemption

Take a trip down London's West End, and you'll find no shortage of award-winning entertainment. Limited engagements, long-running musicals, one-man shows; you've got the lot.

Around these parts, the boards are well-trodden. St Martin's Theatre hosts  The Moustrap, a mainstay since 1952; Wyndham's Theatre only revived  All My Sons this very week.

Between Christie and Miller, however, lies the city's oldest playhouse for thespians in the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane - and with it, a stage adaptation of the Disney classic Hercules.

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The production may have opened in August, but chances are most who will attend it in the coming months hold passing familiarity with its source material and Alan Menken's score.

Though  Go the Distance remains its indelible torch anthem, enough of the 1997 film's soundtrack has found a beloved second life among millennial fans and Gen-Z devotees.

This weekend, however, Hercules isn't the only feat of retrofitted nostalgia given a new lease of life. It is not the only nineties relic refashioned for a new generation to savour.

Chris Eubank Jr. and Conor Benn's second bout of the year arrives paradoxically indebted to and transcendent from the two-fight series between their fathers, Chris Sr. and Nigel.

What began both three and thirty-plus years ago has metamorphosed into something both bizarrely independent and interdependent; almost fable-like in its legacy and lineage.

But perhaps the final legacy of this bond might be its deliverance of professional and personal rehabilitation; a chance to cast its players into a new light among the boxing public.

'Back to raw basics amid no shortage of sweat'

London has been battered by heavy showers since dawn, deluges and downpours brought on by the twist of late autumn. Weather warnings remain in force for the weekend.

When Eubank Jr. forced a two-month delay from the original date set for this rematch, it seems unlikely that the star plotted for a heavenly intervention from the skies like this.

Irrespective of the conditions outside, however, there's no shortage of sweat inside York Hall. Condensation drips down the walls as production teams and media roam to and fro.

The spiritual home of British boxing has seen its share of big names take to the stage, both sporting and otherwise. But few are quite so storied as these, plastered on all sides.

You can feel the history in the air, feel the weight it lends to proceedings. If this week's events have mostly championed state-of-the-art venues, this is back to the raw basics.

There is calculated goodwill in this public weigh-in, with fans littered across the upper balconies, gesticulating to the off-the-clock fighters who mill around the scrum below them.

Mark Robinson/Matchroom Boxing

Derek Chisora remains a particular favourite, perhaps the biggest active fighter present beyond those on the card. So too are former champions Carl Frampton and Tony Bellew.

Certainly, they appear to draw more interest than the undercard, with a parade of fighters that, save for the American Kurt Scoby, draw polite reaction rather than vociferous cheers.

When the headline attractions appear, though, it is a different story - and one that may well offer clues for how this latest dance could reframe the perception of both its lead men.

'Delighted derision gives way to wholesale embrace'

Back in September, Eubank Jr. addressed suggestions that, after years as the pantomime villain, he had become something of a "people's champion" with his first win over Benn.

The unanimous decision he took in April came freighted with powerful emotion on the night; a win buoyed by the end of a seemingly years-long estrangement from dad Chris Sr..

Benn himself suggested with a touch of class in his post-fight comments that the occasion was "worth its weight in gold" if it meant the end of bad blood between father and son.

Yet as they emerged from the wings on Friday night, the cheers that greeted each man were fascinatingly wholesale; a warm embrace that seemed to catch them both off guard.

These were not the scenes of half a year ago, where the hard mixture of delight and derision found the pair as their arrivals and warm-ups were beamed onto stadium screens.

This was the sound of a crowd - select, svelte, undoubtedly devoted to the cause of the sport with starstruck passion - backing its headliners all the way without any reservation.

Eubank Jr. and Been are two men whose reputations, for one reason or another, have taken some hits throughout their career, frequently cast as the bad guy against their foes.

Mark Robinson/Matchroom Boxing

Now, hours away from sharing the ring for a second time, they appear to have turned the tables and the narrative, with echoes of the lionized affection their fathers are held in.

Come what may on Saturday night, not only does this dance offer the chance to go the distance; to quote Hercules, it allows them a zero-to-hero moment to close the book too.

As fans trickle away into the Bethnal Green night, supporters and media alike blink up at the sky. The rain, at last, has stopped - and now comes the final reckoning in its place.

Watch Eubank Jr. vs Benn 2 only on DAZN

Chris Eubank Jr and Conor Benn's much-anticipated rematch is live and exclusive on DAZN PPV on Saturday, November 15. Buy for £24.99 UK / $59.99 US. 

For more information and to buy, click here.