NIGEL BENN will lead son Conor into battle against Chris Eubank Jr – but they were not always in the same corner.
Conor and Eubank Jr clash in a middleweight grudge match on Saturday at Tottenham’s stadium.
GettyNigel Benn with his son Conor[/caption]
GettyThe two are now inseparable – but it wasn’t always that way[/caption]
PANigel is always in his son’s corner[/caption]
It comes 35 years after their dads’ brutal yet epic first fight, which ended with a Eubank Sr stoppage victory.
They controversially drew three years later and in 1996 Nigel retired from boxing as a two-weight world champion.
But after walking away from the sport, his life spiralled out of control and into a battle with drink and drugs.
Nigel’s partying also saw him become unfaithful to his wife Caroline – Conor’s mum – causing friction between the two.
The British boxing legend – living in Majorca – split with Caroline and spent a year living with a pastor as a born-again-Christian.
Conor attended the school attached to the church as one of just 30 students who followed a Bible-based curriculum.
He did not see his dad for those 12 months, sparking a resentment for his old man by the time Nigel returned.
Conor, now 28, told The Times: “There was a lot of hate, for sure. I was at a sensitive age where I was becoming a man.
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“How could you come back and try to discipline me after you’d been gone for a whole year?”
Nigel, 61, said: “He couldn’t stand me. He thought I didn’t like him, but it wasn’t that.
“I didn’t know any other way. I just didn’t want him to be like me. I wanted him to be different.”
Conor was sent to live in the UK – first in Blackpool and then Birmingham – due to his increasingly problematic behaviour.
Then, the family all moved together to Australia after Nigel reconciled with his wife.
It is there that Conor began boxing as an amateur – and where he first challenged his dad to a sparring session.
Nigel recalled: “I had a boot on because I damaged my achilles, so I said to him, ‘Let’s just use the jab.’
“He said, ‘No, I’m going to throw the right hand’. In the heat of the moment, I chipped his tooth. There was blood everywhere.”
Conor would amass a 20-2 amateur record while living in Sydney – and continued to call out his dad for a scrap.
Nigel said: “It was only me and him in the gym and we just knew we were going to have a spar.
Chris Eubank Jr vs Conor Benn
THE countdown is ON to one of the biggest boxing events of the 21st Century
Familial tension and a rivalry that has been brewing for years will finally be resolved when Chris Eubank Jr and Conor Benn meet at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Saturday night.
There has been huge drama in the build-up with the pair engaged in a war of words and multiple clashes in person.
SunSport will have full coverage of the blockbuster clash all week and LIVE round-by-round coverage of every fight on a stacked undercard.
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“You’ve got to understand, I was looking to absolutely knock him spark out, and he was thinking the same.
“We were throwing punches and didn’t care where they came from as long as they connected.”
Conor added: “You can’t understand the full brutality of it. There were no head guards, nothing.
“It was emotional because that was the last time I spent with my dad. We thought it was best that I leave Australia because of the trouble I was in.
“I flew to England on my own the next day and tried to take boxing more seriously. I went and stayed with Ricky Hatton for four months.”
Conor decided to turn professional after touching down in England, eventually settling in Essex under esteemed coach Tony Sims.
You can’t understand the full brutality of it. There were no head guards, nothing.
Conor Benn on sparring dad Nigel
Debuting as the son-of-a-legend, all eyes were on Conor as he went from bungling novice to genuine world level contender over the years.
Conor improved to 21-0 by the time he first signed to fight Eubank Jr in a 157lb catchweight contest in 2022.
But the bout was axed with just days to go when it emerged the unbeaten welterweight failed two Voluntary Anti-Doping Agency tests.
Conor returned an adverse finding for clomifene – a banned substance known to boost testosterone.
The Brit spent two years fighting and protesting his innocence after his British Boxing Board of Control licence was removed.
Conor had two fights in America – beating Rodolfo Orozco and Peter Dobson up at light-middleweight – as his UK Anti-Doping case dragged on.
But eventually, the case against Conor was dropped after the NAPD were “not comfortably satisfied” that UKAD had proved Benn had committed a doping offence.
It cleared Conor to fight on home soil again – but still the court of public opinion is out against the boxer.
And Conor said: “I’ve struggled with the fact there’ll always be that cloud of, ‘Did he or did he not?’
“It was hard to accept that people will never 100 per cent believe you, but I ain’t done it and I’ve spent over a million quid proving it, so who cares? Say what you want.”
Conor nows steps up to the 160lb middleweight limit to fight 35-year-old Eubank. And he predicted: “It could be a really brutal, gory, messy fight.
“I know it could be, but ultimately I’m not too concerned. I think I will go in there and terrorise him.
“Either I’m delusional or hundreds of thousands of people don’t believe in me, but my dad will be proud of me regardless.”
GETTYEubank facing off with Benn[/caption] Creator – [#item_custom_dc:creator]
