Nigel Benn and Chris Eubank defined an era of British boxing when the sport and their uniquely fierce feud was the national conversation.
Their sons, Conor Benn and Chris Eubank Jr reprise the family rivalry this week when they fight on Saturday at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London, live on Sky Sports Box Office.
That period, when Eubank Sr and Benn Sr were at the height of their fame and notoriety, felt like a golden time for British boxing.
“Absolutely,” Michael Watson, a major figure in Eubank and Benn’s lives and boxing careers, told Sky Sports.
Being a part of it, Watson said: “It’s something I’ve enjoyed all my life.”
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Having recently turned 60, Michael Watson, who suffered a catastrophic brain injury in his 1991 loss to Chris Eubank, will walk another miracle mile with his doctor.
Watson beat Benn when they fought in a tent erected in Finsbury Park and suffered his terrible injuries when he lost to Eubank in 1991.
Eubank and Benn were special characters. Watson described them as “real gladiators”.
“They are the real deal, blessed in character,” he said. “Nigel Benn – awesome punching power. Chris Eubank, he’s my heart and soul.
“People don’t know Chris for his real self, but he’s a man of true love and character. Nigel is the same way inclined. Fighters are the best people on the planet, real gentlemen they are.”
But the enmity between Eubank and Benn in their fighting prime was genuine and ferocious.
“Boxing’s a business,” Watson said. “It’s a business, that’s the way it goes.
“That’s business. It’s entertainment. It’s good to be a good character to entertain the people. That’s what it’s all about.”
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Back in 2016 Chris Eubank Sr and Conor Benn had an explosive clash at a press conference and the family rivalry boiled over once again.
By the time Eubank and Benn first fought it was the perfect storm of diametrically opposed characters utterly determined to conquer their opponent. It produced one of the great fights.
Benn was the WBO middleweight champion and once again, with that wild power, he was looking like an unstoppable force when he met Eubank in 1990.
“Eubank had emerged like no one else I’d seen in boxing. The fact that he was so eccentric,” recalled Don McRae, the author of classic book Dark Trade and most recently The Last Bell, who covered the fight.
“Within the first minute I had a sense that something special was going to unfold. I didn’t think it was going to last long. Suddenly Eubank hurt Benn. He rocked him, looked like he could stop him.
“This classic slugfest unfolded and it was just compelling to watch. I had this sense that these two guys were going to a dark, dark place.
“The violence… you could just feel it. It was a savage will that both of them had.”
Eubank almost bit through his tongue when Benn lashed an uppercut into his jaw. He gave away nothing and fought on as Benn rained in punches of huge power.
“You could see Nigel Benn’s eye had puffed up. It looked like he could hardly see out of his eye,” McRae said.
“He nailed Eubank a number of times. That was the first time we began to understand that Eubank, for all his dandyism and affectations, he was actually one hardcore guy with a chin made of granite. Because Benn hit him with some shots that would have stopped most fighters.”
Eubank hurt Benn, hammered him in return and forced the referee to haul him out in the ninth round.
The bout finished with sheer, raw emotion on full display.
“I think you just need to look at the faces of the two fighters to see the depths of darkness they plunged into in that fight,” McRae said.
“Because they so loathed each other it made for box office. But I think it was the fight itself that just made boxing such a powerful thing in the 1990s.”
Watch Eubank Jr vs Benn live on Sky Sports
Their second fight, at Old Trafford in 1993, ended in a draw, one which Benn and many others felt he’d deserved to win. A third fight was never made, leaving their rivalry in a sense unresolved.
“I think that enmity between Benn and Eubank did last for a long time,” McRae said.
“I think for Benn and Watson they had a bit of a chip on their shoulder because they felt Eubank was condescending. He made them out to be stupid.
“I think they wanted to prove a point against him and I think they wanted to hurt him because the depth of animosity was so deep.”
It left their rivalry so ingrained in British sport that the two sons fighting each other is a compelling proposition for the names and family legacy alone.
Another generation, but the same old fight.
Watch Chris Eubank Jr vs Conor Benn on Saturday April 26, live on Sky Sports Box Office.
