Chris Eubank Jr vs Conor Benn interview highlights bad blood between fighters.
Chris Eubank Jr and Conor Benn made a lengthy appearance on Piers Morgan Uncensored to go in depth about their upcoming fight, the fallout from Benn’s previous drug test, carrying their fathers’ legacies and more.
The segment would essentially kick off with the topic of Benn’s failed drug test which nixed their first scheduled fight, with both fighters sticking to respective positions, before Piers would attempt to have a therapy session with Eubank Jr by continually pushing questions about his fractured relationship with his father.
“Sometimes fathers and sons, they don’t see eye to eye, they don’t get along, they fall out. It’s unfortunate what’s happening at this stage of my life with him,” Eubank Jr would say before trying to pivot back to talking about Benn’s drug test. “I don’t believe his father didn’t know what he was doing. I just don’t believe it. So that means Nigel Benn could’ve been capable of doing the same thing in his career.”
Piers would immediately try to redirect Eubank Jr to talking about being estranged from his father and where it all began.
“It got to a stage where I needed to step out of the shadow completely,” Eubank Jr would respond. “It’s a big shadow…It got to a stage where I realized I had to separate myself from this huge character that’s always next to me. (Benn’s) different, his father kind of always let him do his own thing and kind of jump in and sink or swim.
“My father was always next to me and it got to a stage where I decided I needed to walk my own path. He was not happy with that decision. That’s the start of it. Then you have the situation with my brother passing away,” Eubank Jr continued. “That affected him in a deep way — it affected all of us.
“Mental health is a real thing. That incident coupled with the fact we were already not seeing eye to eye destroyed a large part of the relationship and it still hasn’t seemed to have recovered, unfortunately.”
Even that wasn’t enough for Piers, who would then question Eubank about unrequited love and what’s stopping him from reconciling with his father.
“He needs to be able to get over whatever demons he’s fighting,” Eubank Jr responded. “Now, this fight, it’s either going to enable him to get over those demons or unfortunately it’s going to make those demon grow. I don’t know. I still hope here’s there on the night just like [Benn’] old man will be.”
Still, Piers would push Eubank Jr to dig even deeper into his feelings, telling him it must be a very sad thing in his life to be estranged from his father.
“Boxing teaches you discipline, it teaches you mental stability, it teaches you how to deal with impossible odds. My father not being part of my life anymore, it’s sad, it’s horrible, it’s whatever you want to call it, but I understand that, guess what, there’s people in this world — billions of people — that are going through things 10x worse. So I have no right to sit here and complain and feel sorry for myself,” Eubank Jr said.
“If he’s watching this, what would you say to him,” Piers would then ask.
“I’m here,” Eubank Jr said. “I’m getting ready for the biggest fight of my life. If you want to be next to me like [Benn’s] father is next to him, we can do it together. If not, no hard feelings, I’ll get the job done for you, don’t worry about it.”
Piers then would float some supposed information that Eubank Sr has said this fight against Benn means a lot to him, and that he feels Eubank Jr must come through with a win — an obvious load of crap since all Eubank Sr has ever done is publicly campaign against this fight from happening at all. Piers’ comments would strike Eubank Jr as odd as well, questioning when his father has ever said such a thing, to which Piers responded by saying “this is what we’ve been told.”
“I haven’t heard from him, I haven’t heard any indications from him,” Eubank Jr said. “As far as I know he still doesn’t want this fight to go ahead.”
After eventually getting ready to move onto another subject, Piers would ask both fighters about the inherent dangers of boxing and if the animosity between them increases the mortal danger. Benn would say that while he always goes into fight punching with mean intentions, he has no intention of doing permanent damage that Eubank Jr can’t recover from.
“The end goal is never to ruin someone’s life,” Benn would say. “Our goal is to go in there and beat the other man.”
“Honestly, I’m shocked he’s speaking like this,” Eubank Jr would respond. “It doesn’t match the energy that I’ve been seeing over the last few days and I don’t like it. It’s true. What he’s saying is true but this is not, as a fighter, supposed to be the mentality going into a fight.
“My mentality is search and destroy,” Eubank Jr continued. “I have been in fights where I have hospitalized people. Nick Blackwell, he died on the way to hospital when we fought. He was revived with an adrenaline shot to his heart. Now he doesn’t walk or he doesn’t speak well, he’s been severely affected by the fight we had. Going through something like that, it makes it real, and it turned me cold.
“He’s talking it down a little bit right now but —” Eubank said before being interrupted by Benn.
“Chris, I’m still going to render you unconscious. I want you to get up,” said Benn. “I do want you to get up, I’m still going to flatten you, period. So I’m not trying to downplay it…Yes, I want you to get back up, I want you to carry on living your life, but I will splatter your head all over the canvas.”
“That’s good, that’s what I need to hear” Eubank Jr said. “I need to hear that, I don’t want all this sappy bullsh-t that you guys are trying to get into right now. Piers is putting this interview into a direction that I don’t want it to be.
“You know exactly what you’re doing, Piers. You’re very good at what you do but I’m not falling into the trap…you’re not getting any emotions out of me.”
A little while later Piers would ask Eubank Jr about hitting Benn with an egg during their press conference and whether it was a bit childish.
“On reflection I wish I had an egg in both hands,” Eubank Jr replied.
Tensions would rises moments later when Eubank Jr was asked about the threat he made towards Nigel Benn, which Eubank said was actually a promise. Benn would get riled up about Eubank Jr talking about his father with security getting in between the fighters.
You can watch the full video interview in its entirety at the top!
Read the full article here
