Chris Eubank Sr has been very vocal in the fallout of Chris Eubank Jr vs Conor Benn regarding the agreed catchweight limit – and now Eddie Hearn has responded.
Eubank Jr. and Benn were due to fight on October 8th, but the fight was canceled after Benn failed to pass a drug screening.
The fight was to be held at a catchweight weight of 157 lbs. This means that Benn would be up 10 lbs below the limit for welterweight and Eubank Jr. would need to drop 3 pounds from middleweight, where he has fought for most of his career.
Eubank Jr revealed that he had not been down to that weight since he was 18 years old and this became a serious concern for Eubank Sr, who was worried for his son’s health.
This is even more apparent when you consider Eubank Sr lost his son Sebastian in a tragic heart attack last year while swimming in Dubai.
Eubank Sr. addressed the dangerous weight loss he considered to be his.Eubank Jr. as he said to talkSPORT “Anyone who attempts to murder my son, I have my view of them, of what I’m going to share with the world.”
When it was noted that he was making a strong accusation, Eubank Sr quickly replied: “What do you mean strong? That’s not strong, that’s very polite for anyone who would attempt to murder my boy. Is it so strong?
“You don’t know, if you’re 33 years old, you can’t do what you used to do in your mid-20s, which is to lose weight and to be able to handle the loss of that weight.
“To take a man down 3lbs beneath the middleweight limit (160lbs), to have him boil down to 157lbs is literally attempted murder.
“And they wanted me to be an accomplice to it. They wanted me to pay money to join DAZN and become a part.
“They asked me to be in my son’s corner, they were trying to pay me to be in my son’s corner, they wanted me to be an accomplice to my son’s murder.”
Now, Eddie Hearn, one of the event’s promoters, has responded to Eubank Sr’s accusations.
He told talkSPORT: “He’s had a very difficult time recently and some people in the media, quite frankly, are taking liberties in trying to use him for these interviews, but that’s another story.
“What I will say is his comments are based around Chris Eubank Jr agreeing to the 157 lb weight limit in the fight. Chris Eubank Jr represents himself, he’s self managed and promoted by Wasserman Boxing.
“Ultimately, he had to come down 3 lbs from his weight division, which is really actually not that unusual and Conor BennHe had to gain 10 lbs over his weight division.
“We all sat in rooms with all the representatives from all sides to bang out this deal for three months it took, to find a weight limit that we all felt was fair to both parties.
“Ultimately, it’s on Chris Eubank Jr and his representatives, I don’t represent Chris Eubank Jr and I’m not Chris Eubank Jr, so his training team and doctors felt that 157 lbs was the number.
“By the way, I don’t think he would have made 157 lbs, I think he would have come in at 158 and a half, which is the max he could have come in at, which actually if you look at his last fight, I think he weighed 159 lbs.”
Asked if that would be dangerous, Hearn responded, “I don’t believe so, but at the end of the day, that’s for him and his team. We’re negotiating a fight on behalf of Conor Benn.
“I think it was more dangerous for Conor Benn to move up from 147 lbs to fight a guy at 157 lbs, who would rehydrate to 170 lbs.
“After the fact people look back at this, but at the time everybody was aware of the weights and nobody commented, and in fact Chris Eubank Jr was a massive favourite in this fight.”
