Chris Eubank Jr is set to rematch Conor Benn later this fall, and today’s press conference kicked off with comments from both fighters, with Eubank himself sounding off on Matchroom and Eddie Hearn and Team Benn for their attempts at putting him in mortal danger in the first meeting. Here’s some excerpts with the full press conference video in the link above.
Benn on lessons learned from Eubank loss
“It’s always hard processing a loss. Nobody prepares to lose as far as we want to do our best, but ultimately we want to get the victory at all
costs. It taught me a lot about myself, want to go back to the drawing board and work and learn and gain experience and experience was gained. So no doubt November 15th you get a better version.”
Eubank on whether he has more respect for Benn after their first fight
“What a crazy, crazy world we live in today. For my entire life as a professional fighter I have been the villain and the bad guy. 14 years and 38 fights of people loving to hate me. But I don’t want to get ahead of myself but from what I’m seeing online, interactions I’m having with people all over the world in the streets, I don’t know if I’m that guy anymore. It’s not just boxing fans that are approaching me now, it’s little girls, elderly folk, housewives, people that really have nothing to do with boxing and they’re all greeting me and they’re all wishing me the best of luck. It’s humbling.
“One thing I know for sure is that Conor Benn, he put on a great fight, he went out there and he did what I did not expect him to do but I’m going to tell you right here and now you ain’t no champ, and you most definitely ain’t no people’s champ so get that out of your head. You keep letting Eddie Hearn blow smoke up your ass and you’re going to get up being even more of an embarrassment than he is.
“These men are not the men of the people. They are pretending. They are pretending to be the good guys. Wolves in sheep’s clothing, if you will. They will do anything they can, they will screw over anybody they can, they will cut any corners, they will break any rules they can to try to get ahead. Ruthless, immoral, and without restraint these men are.
“They did everything they could to try to destroy me in this last fight. Contract breaches, fines, rehydration clauses, sabotaged weigh-in, biased commentary and refereeing. The list goes on and on, it’s endless. Even on fight night they blocked my team from coming to the stadium for 30 minutes, and when I arrive they have security walking in front of my car trying to slow me down and stall me as much as possible to make me late.
“It’s incredible the level these guys will stoop to. I finally get into the stadium, get into my changing room, preparing, they’re sending idiots to try and disrupt me in my changing room. We get through that, I go out there outside these walls and I win the fight.
“Now after the fight, due to severe dehydration, I’m put in an ambulance and I have to go to hospital. I was actually so dehydrated that actually one of the toe nails on my big toe fell off…I’m in the ambulance and these scumbags blocked the ambulance from leaving the stadium for 20 minutes…I’m laying there in a gurney, oxygen mask on, and the car cannot move, they will not open the gates to let us leave.
“Now if this was a serious injury that I sustained, that 20 minutes could’ve been the difference between life and death. And while this was all happening Conor Benn and Eddie Hearn were in here talking to the media, lying about how I had a broken jaw and that was the reason why I was going to hospital. Bullshit artists of the highest degree.”
Eddie Hearn would fire back at Eubank Jr as you might expect, daring him to explicitly accuse his company of wrongdoing, presumably to get grounds for a defamation lawuit. So, pretty much a run of the mill press conference between these folks.
