Chris Eubank Jr vs Conor Benn will long be recognised as 2025’s fiercest fight, but AJ Gomez thinks that beneath the violence lay a spiritual story of fatherhood, brought into focus on Father’s Day
In 1990, Chris Eubank Sr. and Nigel Benn met in a clash preceded by years of animosity. Simply put: these men just didn’t like each other.
Chris Eubank: a flamboyant showman. Nigel Benn: raw aggression embodied. Their temperaments conflicted with every interaction — Eubank, boxing’s aristocracy, Benn, a clenched jaw and glacial stare that articulated explicitly he was not to be tried.
Now, 35 years later, their sons, Chris Eubank Jr and Conor Benn, exist as a personification of their father’s legacies. Beyond their fighting styles or personality types, in the tension between the two. It appears the disdain their fathers once held for each other was passed down, like a generational inheritance.
A father’s calling
Every facet of this fight — the build-up, the violence, the aftermath, the generational thread — points to a deeper truth: the Bible never treats fatherhood as a mere biological relation. It presents it as a spiritual calling — to nurture, correct, and bless; to bring children up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
even the Saviour of the world was entrusted to a human father
Jesus, in both his divine and human nature is quoted in John 10:30 as saying he and the heavenly father who never fails ‘are one’, yet in God’s perfect plan to salvage the world was Joseph, an earthly father who would nurture him as his own.
God chose to place him under the roof of a carpenter. Not perfect. Not divine. But faithful. That tells us everything — that even the Saviour of the world was entrusted to a human father.
And when that calling is missed, the fallout is profound. Equally, when it is embraced, the impact is immeasurable. This fight, then, felt less like a fight and more like a play — written with subliminals inviting us to consider that truth.
The power of presence
The fight was originally billed to take place on 8 October 2022 but it was postponed after Conor Benn returned two positive tests for a banned substance, clomiphene. Though an independent panel ruled it was “not comfortably satisfied” that Benn had committed a doping violation, the damage was done.
Benn was made a villain in the boxing world, branded a cheat by fans and peers.
Reflecting on this trying period in a conversation with Simon Jordan — one of Conor’s unrelenting critics — Nigel Benn cited his Christian faith as the only thing that restrained him from responding impulsively. “You all were just on Conor, on Conor, on Conor,” he said. “You never gave him breathing space, you never thought about his mental health. And to be honest with you, now, it is only because I am a Christian man that I didn’t want to just jump on you.”
That quote captures their bond. Throughout the press conferences and the interviews, Conor was never without his father nearby.
In this, contrast between the two fathers was clear once more: while Nigel Benn was steadfast by his son’s side, Eubank Sr.’s absence was glaring.
The hurt of abandonment
At the final press conference before the fight, Chris Eubank Jr. addressed the discourse surrounding his weight cut — a grueling process that often involves dehydration and rapid weight loss, pushing fighters to physical extremes.
This wasn’t done as a means of lowering expectations or pre-empting excuses. He used it to offer perspective on what real suffering looks like in his life.
it’s estrangement, not the brutality of boxing, that Chris Jr. named as the real source of pain
“Yeah, the weight is painful, I am in pain right now, I will be in even more pain tonight and tomorrow morning,” but he continued “the question I ask myself is, what is pain? I have a 31-year-old brother — he is buried in the desert in Dubai. That’s pain. I have his son, Raheem, who asks, ‘Why can’t I see my daddy? Why can’t he take me to school?’ That’s pain. My own father, a man I idolised for my entire life, and he doesn’t speak to me — he thinks I am a disgrace. These things are what pain is to me.”
Here is a man enduring self-abandonment, yet he frames it as the background noise to raising his nephew without a father and wrestling with the absence of his own.
Consider the parallel.
Conor Benn — in the toughest year of his career — stood firm and returned to fine form, carried by the presence of the man he calls his hero. Through scandal, shame, and scrutiny, Nigel Benn remained. Meanwhile, Chris Eubank Jr. prepared for a dream fight — a sold-out London arena bearing the weight of legacy — with his father not just absent but opposed.
And it’s that estrangement, not the brutality of boxing, that Chris Jr. named as the real source of pain.
There was, however, a redeeming moment as the cameras cut to the fighters’ arrival at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
The door of a black Rolls-Royce Cullinan swung open. Out stepped Chris Eubank Jr — and, to the disbelief of many, Chris Eubank Sr. The man who had called his son a disgrace, who was expected to remain distant, was doing his superiority-soaked stroll to their locker room, right there by his side.
No louder roar was heard prior to or following that reveal. And on Eubank Jr’s face was a cheeky, confident smirk barely veiling the joyous emotions of a longing finally appeased. He looked like a teenager trying to look cool in front of his school friends —that smirk concealing the boyish elation of having his father in his corner again
You didn’t need to speculate on the effect. You could see it in his performance.
Redemption
Chris Eubank Jr. had been visibly drained from the weight cut. Many analysts predicted it would be his undoing. But he endured. In a grueling, back-and-forth fight, he dug deeper than he had ever been observed to before.
It’s not hard to imagine the presence of his father — the man he idolised — pushing him to overcome what should have been his limit.
When the final bell rang and the scorecards were read, it was Conor Benn who took defeat. The expression on his swollen face told its own story. As Eubank Jr. expressed his joy in a post-fight interview, cameras caught Conor slumped on the shoulder of Nigel Benn, eyes closed, his spent body draped over his father.
These are the toughest men society produces. Fighters. They spend months in brutal training camps preparing both their body and mind to inflict hurt — and absorb hurt — from another man for 36 minutes. It’s a somewhat twisted strength, a mental fortitude that is hard to fathom by those who observe from the outside.
But in that moment of weakness, Conor didn’t need a coach or a corner team, not even his wife who was seen attempting to uplift her husband. He needed a father. And that’s who was there — hands clasped around his back, holding him up before the cameras could intrude.
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In the post-fight press conference, Conor Benn spoke words that could only have come from someone who knows the power of a father’s presence. His voice exuded sincerity as he recalled seeing Chris Eubank Sr. Walk out with his son — to fight him.
“I looked at Chris Sr. and I said, ‘I’m so happy you’re here,’” he said. “Because outside of all the noise, all the promotion, the fight — your relationship with your dad never goes.”
He went on: “What’s boxing? I’d pick my relationship with my dad over boxing any day of the week. So, to see them two — if this has brought them together — that’s worth its weight in gold.”
There’s no love lost between Conor Benn and Chris Eubank Jr. In fact, in the lead-up to the fight, Conor had used Eubank Sr.’s criticisms of his son as ammunition to taunt him. But in the end, with lumps on his face and defeat on his record, he felt if all he had just endured served the purpose of reuniting an estranged father and son, to him — it was more than worth it.
The heavenly Father who doesn’t fail
There can be no overstating the role and influence of a father, and every facet of this fight made that abundantly clear.
We saw what happens when that role is fulfilled: a son given the support to proceed through trying times, given the belief he can accomplish all and held through the pain of endeavouring to do so and falling short.
it is never too late to step up and embrace a role you’ve abandoned
And in Eubank Jr’s case we saw what happens; it’s missed, and later redeemed: an absence causing hurt in ways no punch could replicate, yet with the return of a fathers presence, a 34 year old man, finds the air to fight as if he is invincible.
Let that also serve as encouragement: it is never too late to step up and embrace a role you’ve abandoned. The need for a father is not exclusive to age or any other phase of life.
As Christians we are blessed with more than just the idea of a father, but an example in the reality of our heavenly one — ever-present, steadfast, cornering us through our darkest rounds. In a fight that should be defined by its violence, we were afforded a glimpse of gospel: the blessing of a father’s presence, the ache of his absence, and a point back to the heavenly Father who redeems both.
