There are numerous reasons why certain fights get made and others do not, with the key one, particularly at the top level, having to do with the names involved. Match two big names, for example, and there is a far better chance that it does big business at the box office than, say, a fight between a big name and a nonentity. 

Increasingly, in fact, the combination of big names is becoming preferable to matching two boxers in a competitive fight, or even one that has a lot at stake, in terms of its importance. This, unfortunately, is the very thing that has opened the floodgates to influencer boxing, and celebrity boxing, and boxing on Netflix involving Jake Paul and a 58-year-old Mike Tyson. 

For boxing in 2025, it’s the recipe, it seems. It’s also both the disease and – for some – the cure. 

In April, Conor Benn and Chris Eubank Jnr will not be fighting because a bout between them represents either the culmination of some collision course or destiny. Instead, they are fighting only because one of the fighters carries the surname Benn and the other Eubank, with these two names steeped in history, especially in Great Britain. It is, in that sense, a fight built on the foundations and good work of others – that is, their fathers – rather than on anything either Benn and Eubank Jnr have achieved themselves. That is not to say they are found wanting in this department, only that had their surnames been Smith and Jones, this fight would (a) not be happening and (b) not mean half as much in Great Britain as it apparently does.

Indeed, the reason why most believed Conor Benn and Chris Eubank Jnr would never share a ring is because of how far-fetched it is and always has been as an idea. Names aside, there is absolutely no reason for these two men to actually fight; something as true now as it was back in October 2022, when they were originally meant to settle their manufactured spat. After all, Benn, despite progressively bulking up, is still a natural welterweight occasionally flirting with super-welterweight, while Eubank Jnr is still a middleweight with a history of fights at super-middleweight. In other words, were it not for their dads and the sing-song nature of their surnames when combined, there is no realm in which these two, Benn and Eubank Jnr, would ever be deemed rivals or natural opponents.

They will tell you it’s because of the history between the sons – which, in truth, started only in 2022 – but that is simply not the case. Even if helped, to some degree, by the controversy which surrounded Benn’s failed drugs tests that year, the April 26 bout between Benn and Eubank Jnr is of interest in the UK primarily because their names are synonymous with a time when boxing in this country meant something and was watched by everybody on a television and not via an app. It is, in effect, a shot of nostalgia and it proves that nostalgia, not clomiphene, remains this fight’s most powerful drug. 

If in doubt, just look at how disappointed those involved have been by Chris Eubank Snr’s lack of participation in the promotion, both first time around and this time around. With his old enemy, Nigel Benn, on board, sitting proudly alongside his son, it would seem obvious to have Eubank present, too, supporting his son as he has done throughout most of his career. Yet, sadly, relations between father and son on the Eubank side are allegedly strained and therefore Eubank, the dad, has been conspicuous by his absence of late. In fact, he was one of the many dissenters at the start of this Benn-Eubank redux, calling at the time for the fight to be cancelled on account of the weight discrepancy between the pair. He then later predicted the fight would never materialise before joining the chorus of condemnation when the October fight disappeared due to Conor Benn testing positive for clomiphene.

Now, two and a half years on, Eubank is nowhere to be seen when it comes to his son. Worse, this absence has provided only ammunition for Benn, a young man emboldened by the presence of his dad. “Chris can say what he wants, but the bottom line is his dad don’t even like him,” Benn said at a recent press conference. “You couldn’t pay the man enough to be in his corner. That’s an accomplishment, Chris. Even your own dad don’t like you.”

Another low blow in an event lacking clean shots, Benn’s words were both spiteful and fuelled by frustration. He knew, of course, that an easy way to rile Eubank Jnr was to raise the subject of his absent father, but he was also no doubt frustrated by the fact that this fight, sold predominantly on surnames, currently presents as three actors on stage trying and failing to perform a scripted four-hander. There are, because of old man Eubank’s absence, lines left unsaid; storylines as yet unexplored. Nobody, no matter how hard they try, can replace him, the truest actor of them all. 

Eubank Chris

On Friday, in Brighton, the seaside town where the Eubanks live, Eubank Snr was spotted out in the wild – at a local boxing event to be exact. Watching his nephew, Harlem, stop the tough Irishman Tyrone McKenna in 10 rounds, Eubank cut a typically contemplative figure and got involved only at the end, when he could be seen calmly offering advice to Harlem in the ring. There was, on this occasion, none of the same intrusiveness we saw when his son, Chris, was starting out, nor indeed any attempt to make it all about him. Instead, Eubank Snr appeared content to observe from afar, appreciating his nephew’s handiwork and happy to witness a fight spared the dirt and darkness of the one involving his son and Conor Benn. 

In fact, it wasn’t until the dust had settled on the fight between Eubank and McKenna that Eubank Snr reminded us all of his bloodline and how his relationship with his son had distorted and soured in recent years. Asked, on camera, if he had been impressed by Harlem’s performance, Eubank Snr said, “Absolutely so,” before then getting to what he really wanted to address. “What I should tell you is that the weight he [Harlem] is now – he’s like 70 kilos – that’s the weight of Conor Benn. They’re walking around at the same weight. He is a 147 fighter; Conor used to be a 147 fighter. He’s been spoiled; he’s been misled. But this is the fight for him. When the fight falls through, which it will – I’m talking about Junior and Conor – when that falls through, he’s [Harlem] ready. It may not be on the same date, but that’s going to be the next fight for them, I believe.”

Suddenly Dave Farrar, the man tasked with interviewing the Eubanks – Chris and Harlem – for Channel 5, had been led in a different direction altogether; the allusion to a potential fight cancellation an avenue too alluring not to explore. “I said it the last time,” said Eubank. “If you check back when the fight was made the first time, I said it was not going to happen. The day before the fight, it was pulled.

“I’m saying to you that Harlem ‘The Gold’ Eubank is the fight for Conor Benn. It’s the fight he deserves because he has been put on the backburner for years. 

“They’ve destroyed the career of Conor Benn in my view. The only way he’s going to get any dividend back is by fighting an undefeated Eubank – that’s Junior’s cousin, Harlem ‘The Gold’ Eubank.”

No sooner had his uncle finished promoting and selling him than Harlem cleared his throat and set the interview back on track.  “I want to give a shout-out to Tyrone McKenna,” he said. “He’s a real war horse. I give him full credit. He’s a real Irish fighter. He came and represented tonight.”

“You’ve got a career in television,” Farrar said in response. “I was going to take us back to tonight and you did it for me.”

The implication was that Harlem, like Farrar, had sensed that the post-fight interview had become too heavily focused on Conor Benn, the man Harlem hopes to one day fight, and that not enough respect was being shown to Tyrone McKenna, the man Harlem had just defeated. As a result, Harlem was at pains to postpone the Benn talk for a moment in favour of bringing up McKenna again and in turn shining the light back on himself. It was a pro move in every sense, yet occasionally something – or someone – is too big to ignore completely. 

“I did what I said I was going to do and next is Conor Benn,” Harlem said to finish. “That’s the fight where I can really do some damage. He knows it and that’s why he doesn’t want the fight.”

Harlem Eubank

All in all, it made for an interesting exchange. Surreal, on the one hand, because Chris Eubank was, in 2025, now campaigning for his nephew instead of his son, the exchange also carried a certain gravitas in light of how impressive Harlem had just looked in the ring against McKenna. Dominant throughout, for 10 rounds he had hardly put a wrong, and the right uppercut with which he dropped McKenna in round five was one of the best you will witness in any ring this year. Not only that, he is, as his uncle stated, a natural 147-pound fighter, meaning any potential fight with Conor Benn would be exempt from the uneasy feeling that surrounds the proposed April 26 clash between Benn and Eubank Jnr.

In many ways they are well matched, Conor Benn and Harlem Eubank. They have had a similar number of fights – 21 for Harlem Eubank, 23 for Conor Benn – and have yet to suffer defeat, largely on account of both being so far untested at the top level. They are close in age, too, with Eubank 31 and Benn 28, and they turned professional within just 13 months of each other. 

If you consider that Eubank Jnr turned pro some five years earlier than Benn, and has a total of 37 pro fights to his name (including three defeats), there is certainly an argument to be had that a fight between Conor and Harlem is the more natural fight involving fighters with those famous surnames: Benn and Eubank. 

Then again, for as much as Harlem Eubank benefits from his surname he is also in this instance hamstrung by the relative unfamiliarity of his first name. For no matter how you sell or cut it, Harlem is not Chris Eubank’s son. He is not his son biologically, nor has he been bred and moulded to behave like him and act like him and flaunt like him. 

In some respects, that may have served Harlem well. However, on Friday, when his manners, decorum and decency got in the way of The Big Call-Out, it became clear that the hypothetical transferring of one Eubank for another would require more than just them sharing the same last name and a vague facial resemblance. In Chris Eubank Jnr, you see, Chris Snr has over time managed to create a young man in his own image, one who walks, talks, and performs like him. This is why Eubank Jnr is, at the age of 35, so adept at selling even the most grotesque spectacles and why, perhaps, father and son no longer see eye to eye.