Nigel Benn believes what his son Conor has dealt with since his two positive tests for clomifene came to light as a modern-day “witch hunt” with the way that he’s been persecuted.
The retired former world champion Nigel suffered through his son’s ordeal, medicating himself at times with red wine during the worst of it. He believes his son Conor (21-0, 14 KOs) is innocent of this.
After the WBC’s recent clearing of Conor, the light is finally at the end of the tunnel for the 26-year-old, and he’s ready to resume his boxing career, albeit outside of the UK.
Conor still needs to meet with the BBBofC for him to get his license back, but it appears he’s not going to give them the satisfaction of grilling him.
If the young Benn doesn’t meet with the British Boxing Board of Control, he has two courses of action:
1. He can fight outside of the country under a different license and have his fights piped in on DAZN.
2. Seek permission to fight in the UK using an outside boxing license.
Given Conor’s popularity, it’s likely that he’ll be permitted to fight in the UK using an outside license because they’re not going to turn him down for long, particularly if he creates huge numbers in his fights outside of the country.
The demand will be too high from fans wanting to see Benn fight for the BBBofC to prevent him from competing inside the country.
“I don’t really drink, but I was drinking a half bottle of red wine every night. On medication. We were both in a dark, dark place. To me, this is a witch hunt,” said Nigel Benn to Piers Morgan about how he reacted to his son Conor testing positive for a banned substance.
“It looks like this is a witch-hunt. We’re going back to the 1800s. ‘She is a witch, burn her,’ and everyone’s ‘yeah, burn her.’ Hold on a minute; that is my son.”
“If I ever thought my son was guilty of anything, I’d say, ‘son, love you, but you know what, you got to deal with this on your own.’ I’d hang him out to dry. But I was actually in this training camp with him.”
Eddie Hearn needs to find an opponent for Benn’s next fight. Although Manny Pacquiao has been mentioned recently as an option for Conor, it could be someone else like Adrien Broner that he ultimately faces next.
Broner would be a good option for Benn, given that he’s been out of the ring for close to a year.
Taking on the 45-year-old Pacquiao might be too tough of an opponent for Benn’s first fight back because Manny still looks lightning fast working out on the heavy bag, and his speedy combinations look just as powerful as dangerous as they were when he defeated Keith Thurman in 2019.
Under the circumstances, it wouldn’t be fair to Benn to fight a guy at Pacquiao’slevel after a year out of the ring.
