After 35 years of squabbles between two families, a man named Benn finally found a way to beat a Eubank. That it was comfortably the dullest encounter of the genre will not matter in the slightest to the guy who succeeded where his father twice failed.
And so, when it was done, Conor Benn climbed to the top rope and roared like a maniac at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, with no need to wait for the formalities of the scorecards, such was the resounding nature of his revenge over Chris Eubank Jr.
Where the older man triumphed by unanimous decision in a wild, raw slugfest in April, the younger levelled their individual rivalry with speed and control 203 days later.
The official scores of 119-107, 116-110, 118-108 in Benn’s favour captured the nature of the evening, but concealed a pair of surprises. Primarily, that Nigel’s son could limit his aggression and emotions to a functional place, but also in how flat the contest was when set against the chaos of the first.
Were it not for the fire and fury of the final round, when Benn twice dropped Eubank, we would be questioning if more money has ever been spent on such an anti-climax. We still might given the purses for a non-title fight that saw Eubank Jr pocket an estimated £10million and Benn £8m.
But at least there was some bang for the buck and possibly some closure, too, on a rivalry that has been stretched out to excessive lengths to make a fight between men who belong in different weight categories.
In regards to the latter, Eubank Jr might eventually offer a detailed range of excuses for his desperately lethargic performance. And some might even be valid in consideration of the rehydration clauses that limited his ability to recover from a draining weight cut to make the 160-pound limit.
But it is more likely that his age – 36 and the elder by seven years – simply caught him up. He looked slow and old and thoroughly beaten, taking the family score to 2.5-1.5 across two generations.
Benn was happy to see this one as the last dance between them. He said: ‘It has been some journey and this is the end of the Eubank-Benn saga. Everyone who said I can’t box, put that in your pipe and smoke it.’
To sell it as a boxing masterclass would be a mistake – but it was an impressive dismantling of the opposition. There were also some conciliatory words for Eubank, with Benn adding: ‘Listen, this is generational, never done before, so credit to Chris. Thank you for sharing the ring with me. Not bad for two silver spoon kids.’
Eubank, for his part, alluded to difficulties in making the weight. He said: ‘ I have been through hell and back to get to this night. It is what it is. I tried hard. He fought hard and tough and he has power. I don’t know how he did it.’
The last sentence could be vulnerable to differing interpretations in light of the narrative around Benn’s failed drugs tests prior to the first fight.
But this one had no such drama in the build-up. Indeed, there were a significant number of empty seats ahead of the first bell, which told a story of fading novelty. Without the benefit of a scandal to leverage, or even the mystery of whether Eubank Snr would be present, much of the spice was sapped from an event that was never much more than a money grab for all concerned.
On that front, there was still sufficient demand to use this grand stadium for its host. Besides, an attendance upwards of 55,000 on a drizzly night in November is not to be sniffed at.
But it was telling that 2,000 tickets were gifted to local cab drivers by the Saudi overlords and seats that initially cost £100 were going for as little as £28 on secondary markets by the morning of the fight.
For those present, including Thierry Henry, Rod Stewart and Pierce Brosnan among the notables, Eubank Jr promised to dish out an ‘a**-beating’ and that this would be ‘a fight of the decade contender’.
He didn’t and it wasn’t.
Benn, as expected, showed the extra aggression, but with fewer of the rough edges we saw in April. Rather than hunting with haymakers, he was favouring the jab and repeatedly dipped below waist-height in manoeuvres to draw the taller man down.
Did it work? It was enough to take the early rounds but not to cause damage. Barring a couple of moderate right hands that he absorbed around the jaw and body, Eubank seemed content with the arrangement, but why? Was it by design to sap Benn’s strength? Or just a failure to get those ageing fists flying at a moving target?
Either way, he left himself a lot of ground to make up on the cards. By the halfway point, it was hard to make a case for Eubank having won a single round, with the possible exception of the third, when he finally landed a couple of decent shots.
The rest was a reliable pattern of slow jabs into cold air, quickly followed by a more accurate retaliation from Benn. He was too quick for Eubank and too young.
That was highlighted in the seventh when, finally, there was a moment of legitimate excitement. Eubank had landed a strong jab, but as he stepped forward to follow it, he swallowed a left from Benn and then a far harder right that snapped his head back. Benn leaned forward and laughed in his face.
The eighth saw an improvement from Eubank, featuring one driving right flush on Benn’s cheek, but it was only a precursor to more frustration. The 12th round knockdowns settled it all rather emphatically as those right hands from Benn dropped Eubank to the canvas.
With them, he hopefully brought a close to a once-thrilling rivalry that has been allowed to go on too long.
