Chris Eubank Jr reacts to prospect of losing $500k for missing weight by less than one ounce, as Conor Benn warns he has ‘no sympathy’ and sends message on necklace at final face-off

By TUM BALOGUN

Chris Eubank Jr has insisted that his failure to make the 160-pound middleweight limit for his showdown with Conor Benn has ‘no relevance’ on the outcome of the bout. 

The 35-year-old also hit out at his opponent – who attended the final face-off wearing a necklace that included the words ‘not guilty’ – and his promoter, claiming the weight debacle was simply an attempt to ‘get me off track’. 

Eubank Jr was hit with a £375,000 penalty after tipping the scales just half an ounce over the limit. He is now at risk of losing more of his £7million purse if he weighs over 170 pounds on the morning of the fight.

‘If they’re going to take a half a million for being 0.05lb off the limit,’ said Eubank Jr. ‘It has no relevance of what happens tomorrow, that’s just the people that Matchroom, Eddie Hearn and Conor Benn are.

‘They’re set up to try and get me off track. none of it will work. he’s in for a hell of surprise. he thinks he’s going out there for a hop skip and right hand – but he has no idea the pain (he’s going to get).’

Benn, fighting in Britain for the first time since the resolution of a two-year legal battle against his positive drugs tests, reacted to the news of Eubank’s weight failure by laughing on social media with the message: ‘Show me the mother******* money.’ 

Chris Eubank Jr has insisted that his failure to make the 160-pound middleweight limit for his showdown with Conor Benn has ‘no relevance’ on the outcome of the bout

Conor Benn was not sympathetic to his opponents plight and declared his intention to do damage

The fighters will settle a three-year-long feud at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Saturday

On Friday night, he was even less sympathetic and stated his intention to dish out his own punishment at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. 

‘He should’ve made weight, he’s made this weight his whole career,’ he said. ‘He’s expecting sympathy but he’s not going to get sympathy from me,’ said Benn. 

‘I feel comfortable at 156lb, I’m a 147lb fighter so I’ll go in there and use my speed, my ferocity,’ he added. ‘I don’t know if I’m supposed to look scared, intimidated. I’m neither. I’m just looking forward to Saturday.

‘I’m here to take his head clean off.’ 

The weight stipulations have contributed to anxieties around the fight, which was initially cancelled in 2022 over Benn’s failed tests for clomifene. Under the original agreement, Eubank Jr, who has campaigned as high as super-middleweight, had agreed to meet at a catchweight of 157 pounds.

Eubank Snr has been its most outspoken critic, saying last week: ‘They’re putting a fight on that is against the law of boxing.

‘I told my son three years ago, that fight does not happen. He is the wrong weight. I told him why it shouldn’t happen and why it will not happen. I was correct last time and I will be correct this time.’

Eubank Jnr has already forked out £100,000 of his purse to the British Boxing Board of Control after slapping Benn across the face with an egg at a press conference in February. It remains to be seen if his difficulties with the weight are reflective of a struggle to drop pounds or an attempt to gain a physical edge in the ring.

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Chris Eubank Jr reacts to prospect of losing $500k for missing weight by less than one ounce, as Conor Benn warns he has ‘no sympathy’ and sends message on necklace at final face-off

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