Conor Benn settled the score with Chris Eubank Jr at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, dominating the rematch of British boxing’s biggest rivalry to win a unanimous decision seven months after losing the first fight on the same three cards.
Benn controlled range and tempo for long stretches, hurting Eubank Jr with heavy body work in round seven, and closed the show emphatically, dropping him twice in the final round before the bell rescued him. It reversed April’s 116-112 sweep the other way and gave Benn his first win in a rivalry that has now spanned two generations of the Benn and Eubank families.
A different fight from the first meeting
Photo: IMAGO
Where the first fight had been desperately close, this one wasn’t in doubt for long once Benn’s work downstairs began to slow Eubank Jr from the midpoint onward. His conditioning and adjustments between fights were obvious, and by the closing rounds he was landing at will, capping the performance with the two late knockdowns that left no room for argument on the scorecards.
“I feel like this is the end of the Benn-Eubank saga. Done. Finished. It’s over,” Benn said afterwards, before turning to those who had doubted him following the first defeat: “Everyone’s saying I can’t box? Put that in your pipe and smoke it.”
Eubank Jr accepts the defeat without excuses
To his credit, Eubank Jr didn’t look for reasons why. “He fought hard. He fought tough. He’s got power,” he said simply. “It’s his night.”
Closing a chapter three decades in the making
With a win apiece from two genuinely competitive fights, and both men now in their thirties, Benn’s declaration that the saga is finished carries real weight, even if boxing has a habit of finding a way back to its biggest rivalries when the money is right. For now, though, the Benn family has the final word in a story that began with their fathers in the 1990s and has taken more than three decades, and two long-delayed fights, to settle.