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I witnessed Eubank silence Benn, the night British Boxing found its greatest rivalry
Few people gave Chris Eubank Senior a chance against Nigel Benn. People didn’t take the Brighton man seriously as a boxer.
Nowadays, his eccentricities are held as proof of authenticity, but in 1990, it was the opposite, he was scorned as a fake. People saw the fancy clothes, delicate accent and mannerisms and concluded that he couldn’t possibly be a real fighting man like the Dark Destroyer, who was waiting for him.
Benn was a snarling menace. A soldier before he found boxing, he brought an explosiveness that’s rarely been seen in a British ring. He was the ultimate brawler.
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So intent was he to land his hooks, that he would often throw caution to the wind. Like Fabio Wardley today, Benn was at his most dangerous when hurt.
The young Benn Senior hardly knew what a jab was. He would bob and weave until close enough to launch his terrifying hooks. He embodied brutality whereas Eubank called boxing a “mug’s game”.
After months of feverish build-up in which Eubank refused to look at Benn, the time had come, they were finally facing each other in the ring. Bizarrely, as the two men were brought together by the referee, the commentator noticed a butterfly in the ring.
It immediately became clear that Eubank wasn’t scared of Benn as so many had thought. He met his attacks head on with precise, one-twos before scuttling away sideways in his unique fashion. Benn needed to feel his knuckles connecting with bone and flesh, but Eubank was gone.
I had the privilege of being there at the NEC that night. I was almost sick with excitement before the fight began. I downed a whisky at the entrance and found a quiet spot to lie down for five minutes to calm myself down.
At the start of the fight, everyone around me stood up, and remained standing through every round, so powerful was the impression that Benn could detonate a bomb to end it at any moment.
The Eubanks and Benns take punishment like no one else
They both took horrendous punishment. Eubank Senior, just like his son, was tight at the weight, and Benn’s vicious body shots were breaking him in half.
Chris’s face wore a look of astonishment after one particular uppercut. He later said he had never felt power like it. Eubank’s trainer, Ronnie Davies knew his boxer’s tongue had been split open by it and mischievously offered him some crisps in the changing room afterwards.
But it was Eubank’s precise counters that eventually took their toll. When Benn sagged after a right hand in the ninth, Eubank pounced. Chris had nothing left, but he kept moving his hands until the referee intervened. He fell to his knees and emitted a sound so shrill that it was almost ultrasonic.
And so the legend of Benn vs Eubank was born. Chris Eubank Jnr and Conor Benn are not their fathers, they are their own men.
But when the bell sounds and they move to the centre of the ring, live on DAZN PPV, the greatest rivalry in British boxing history recommences. Nothing can stop it.
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