Chris Eubank Jnr will not be fighting Conor Benn. Not on February 3rd 2024, anyway.
Earlier this week, Benn’s promoter, Eddie Hearn, admitted that the fight was in danger of falling apart and it was confirmed today that the saga – which began back in October 2022 when Benn’s positive test for the banned substance clomifene caused the late cancellation of their initial catchweight fight – has finally come to an end. For the time being.
Eubank’s promoter, Kalle Sauerland, told SecondsOut that they finally walked away from the fight having been unable to agree a commercial agreement. It looks likely that they will now pursue a mandatory shot at IBO middleweight champion, Etinosa Oliha (19-0, 8 KO’s).
“The Conor Benn discussions – unfortunately – have ended. That fight commercially couldn’t be made and yesterday the IBO have ordered their mandatory. A very tough 19-0 knockout specialist champion so we’ll be negotiating that now,” Saurerland said.
“I can just put it down to commercial reasons. I’m not gonna go into too much detail.”
Don’t expect this to be the final story you ever read about the fight. The Eubank and Benn family names have been linked for more than 30 years and will probably be linked for 30 more. It is almost inevitable that discussions will re-open at some point in the future but a line in the sand has been drawn.
“I think that fight is always gonna be somewhere lingering,” Sauerland continued. “It will all depend on who wins and loses in the future. Is there still interest int he fight? Does Conor stay at that weight? Does Eubank go up? Those things are for the future and at the moment it’s all about what’s next for Eubank for us and it’s not Conor Benn.”