Benn v Eubank chaos leaves a legacy of greed, stupidity and danger

Boxing is stalked by the ghosts and tragedies of the past. The chaos of this week in British boxing cannot shut out the distressing memories that still haunt the Eubank and Benn families. Michael Watson ended up in a coma for months, and his life has never been the same, after he and Chris Eubank Sr met in the ring in 1991. Nigel Benn showed such ferocity four years later that his opponent, Gerald McClellan, went blind and suffered terrible brain damage. Chris Eubank Jr’s fists sent Nick Blackwell tumbling into a coma in 2016. Both families have been scarred by the damage done in the ring.

Eddie Hearn is acutely aware of these grim stories in British boxing. He also cried openly when Patrick Day, an intelligent and inspirational young American fighter, lost his life after fighting on a Hearn promotion in Chicago in 2019. Yet the famously garrulous promoter and his paymasters, the streaming service Dazn, risked shredding all vestiges of their integrity by riding roughshod over the stipulation by the British Boxing Board of Control (BBBofC) that Saturday night’s fight between Conor Benn and Chris Eubank Jr should be “prohibited”.

The immediate obligation is to stress that British boxing came close to slithering over the brink into a lawless state this week. Attention should focus, rightly, on the scarcely credible decision to try to allow Benn to step into the ring at the O2 in London on Saturday despite him having tested positive for clomifene. The Voluntary Anti-Doping Agency (Vada) found traces of the fertility drug in Benn’s system and yet the boxer and his promoter clung desperately to the fact he tested negative in all tests carried out by UK Anti-Doping (Ukad), which monitors fighters on behalf of the British board.