Eubank's weigh-in farce shows Benn clash is more marketing than brawl

Roll up, roll up for the greatest show on earth. The old fairground barkers had nothing on the modern merchandisers drumming up a frenzy for Saturday's showdown at Tottenham Hotspur.

Forget Waterloo, never mind Agincourt, ignore Bannockburn. Eubank Jr versus Benn The Younger, so we are told, is the real British Battle for the Ages. That is but one of several slogans emblazoned on an event which might have been generated by Artificial Intelligence.

They include The Family Feud, Born To Brawl, History in the Remaking and — how convenient that this falls at Easter — In The Name Of The Fathers.

A more fitting title might be A Fight For Nothing since there are no major championships at stake for two men who, unlike their fabled dads, have never held a proper world title between them.

Or to be more precise, A Fight For Nothing But The Money. That is how it is being characterised by Chris Eubank Sr, who has been urging his son to withdraw at this late hour even though he stands to pocket the thick end of £6million, and who is threatening to boycott the event.

Eubank Sr is by no means alone in believing this to be a fight so ill-conceived that it puts both combatants at abnormal risk. His lad, Chris Jr, through being contractually denied more than 10lbs in rehydration after narrowly failing to make the 160lb limit. Nigel Benn’s boy, Conor, by bulking up two divisions above his natural welterweight to take on a significantly larger man.

Throughout this entire fiasco Eubank Jnr has been claiming the moral high ground as the righteous, self-styled protector of the game’s integrity… while taking the money.

If Benn was being labelled the cheat, Eubank is the hypocrite. Even before he came in half an ounce over the weight limit to which he had contracted. By preferring to make victory more likely by paying the £375,000 fine rather standing by his signature — penned in the name of the family reputation he proclaims to be protecting — he has dragged this fiasco out of the fairground into farce.

Can he be surprised that his own father called him a disgrace for involving himself in this ill-conceived venture?

Fight of the Century, as the tub-thumpers have been broadcasting? No, a farce without honour.

This is not the match made in heaven which the ad-men would have us believe. It is by accident that the offspring of two legendary boxers, who clashed in epic fights in a golden age for British boxing, have followed in their fathers’ bootsteps at around the same time.

Normally, given the disparity in size, the pair would not be boxing each other. This match has been contrived to trade on their surnames, manicuring a legacy, with an exaggeration of their respective talents and some juggling on the scales.

The promoters — Eddie Hearn with Benn and Ben Shalom for Eubank Jnr — have produced a masterpiece of marketing.

There is often talk of letting fights marinate in the anticipation of the public. Every last ounce of juice has been sucked from this one in the two and a half years since the first attempt was scotched at the last minute by revelations that Benn had failed two drugs tests.

By hitching his star so firmly to Benn’s protestations of innocence, Hearn surely trapped himself in a spiral of costly litigation. It would have been cheaper, and simpler, if Benn had just copped a plea and served his two-year ban.

The purses he picked up for fighting a couple of American sluggers in obscure venues while the legal arguments wrangled on amounted to little more than loose change. Worse, he made dreadfully hard work of outpointing them. Hearn kept the faith, grinding the organ with every soundbite from the various court hearings.

Shalom came on board, making good on his pledge to find one big pay-night for Eubank by steering him back towards Benn despite reservations about the convoluted process which had found a way to circumvent Benn’s alleged performance-enhancing transgressions.

He was cleared by the National Anti-Doping Panel and Eubank made his opinion on that clear by cracking an egg on Benn’s cheek-bone at a media conference. That unspoken statement about his rival’s initial excuse that he had failed the drugs tests because he had eaten too many eggs — subsequently dropped amid much amused clucking — cost Eubank a £100,000 fine. And it kept the publicity mill churning.

As have the several face-to-face TV confrontations where the gloves have been on and off with greater frequency than clothes on Love Island.

‘It’s hate,’ thunders Hearn. ‘Real hate. Honest.’ Shalom believes him: ‘Chris really doesn’t like Conor.’

The snake-oil salesmen back in the Wild West used to hawk their wares off the back of a wagon. Shalom and Hearn have the benefit of a much more powerful platform, the internet, on which to broadcast their message to the world. This high-tech carpet bombing grabs the interest way beyond the boxing audience.

Stadium fights in England have become the perfect excuse for the lads to go on gung-ho Saturday nights out, bolstering a sell-out crowd in north London between pre-and-post-match visits to the boozer. One curiosity of these occasions is that once inside the ground, the mates tend to keep only half an eye on the action while joking and laughing among themselves.

Nevermind the quality. Love the craic. It matters not that when Hearn trumpets the 28-year-old Benn and 35-year-old Eubank as ‘two world-class boxers in their prime’ he pushes hype closer to hysteria.

Benn appears to buy into the gym narcissism when he declares himself ‘shocked’ to be told that he is the underdog in the betting. There is nothing in his resume to suggest that he walks with the gods of the ring. His unbeaten record has been built on novices, journeymen and veterans.

Eubank’s three defeats were inflicted by Brits of world-championship pedigree. Narrowly by Billy Joe Saunders, comprehensively by George Groves and concussively by Liam Smith. The latter he avenged in similar knockout fashion. He also holds a victory over James DeGale.

None of which rules out the possibility of an entertaining contest. Not only superstars put on a good show. Micky Ward and Arturo Gatti came together equally matched at their level and produced one of the most thrilling trilogies ever.

The contrast in styles between the laconic Eubank and the feisty Benn might strike a match worth watching, even if they are unlikely to reach the heights of their fathers over two classics which, for the moment, has the rival dynasties on one knockout win by Eubank and one draw.

So how will that score stand after tonight? Benn can train like a maniac, which he has, and fight like a whirling dervish, which he will, but is that enough to overcome Eubank’s store of experience, his superior skillset and his advantages in height, reach and natural-born weight?

This, one of the oldest mantras of the hardest game, says not: A good big’un always beats a good little’un. Amend that slightly and you have your prediction: An average bigger’un beats an average smaller’un.

Whatever happens inside the ring, Hearn and Shalom will be praying the lads have a good night out. The sale of 60,000 tickets in a matter of hours has Fast Eddie and Slick Benny talking already about a rematch, before the first punch is thrown in anger. Maybe there will even be a trilogy which never materialised for their fathers.