Chris Eubank Jr. says his fight against Conor Benn makes sense from a business perspective but not from an “ability” angle for their main event match on October 8th on DAZN PPV at the O2 Arena in London.
Eubank Jr (32-2, 23 KOs) sees Benn as still too inexperienced for him to be taking this fight against him, especially with him needing to go up two weight classes from welterweight to middleweight.
Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn has slowly been moving Benn at incremental stages due to him not having an amateur background to speak of.
Benn is a big puncher for the welterweight division, but it’s going to be asking a lot for him to test his power against a middleweight like Eubank Jr.
During Matchroom’s face-off episode, Eubank Jr revealed that he’d retire if he loses to Benn. He said he was serious about that.
“It makes sense from a business perspective. From an ability perspective, it doesn’t. He’ll obviously tell you different,” said Chris Eubank Jr to Matchroom Boxing about why it makes sense for Conor Benn to fight him. “You don’t know until that bell goes.”
“That’s his opinion, and it’s completely irrelevant. He’s going to say that,” said Benn about the fight not making sense “ability-wise. I get paid. I’ve got plenty of paydays. Look at his trajectory and look at mine. It says enough.
“Is that really a question?” said Eubank Jr. when asked if he doesn’t think Benn has the boxing ability to compete with him. “There’s levels in the game. He’s never done anything like this before.
“I’ve done this for years. He doesn’t know what it feels like to walk into the fire in front of 20,000 people. He hasn’t done that yet,” said Eubank Jr.
“No, I have just to correct you,” said Benn.
“Well, if you have, you haven’t headlined,” said Eubank Jr.
“It makes no difference to me,” said Benn. “You’re talking about pressure. It makes no difference to me.”
“It makes a huge difference,” said Eubank Jr.
“Well, that’s your opinion,” said Benn.
“You don’t know, but you will,” said Eubank Jr.
“Don’t try and tell me what I feel,” said Benn.
“I know because I’ve been there,” Eubank Jr said. “I’ve walked your path. I was you once.”
“Come on, mate. Stop playing that old man card,” said Benn.
“I’m not playing,” said Eubank Jr.
