Eubank vs Benn: Boxing’s favourite villain turns anti-hero

Parading in luxury designer finery, rubbing shoulders with A-list celebrities and playing poker with filthy-rich footballers – Chris Eubank Jr has never really marketed himself as a man of the people.

But, deep down, everybody wants to be liked, and the 35-year-old is no different.

“People say that ‘he’s been happy to play the bad guy’. I wasn’t happy about it,” Eubank says.

“I didn’t like getting booed into arenas for all these years. I don’t like waking up and going on my Instagram and seeing people saying ‘you’re going to get knocked out’ and ‘you’re not as good as your old man’.”

The Brighton boxer says he has learned to accept, even “relish”, the villain tag. In the build-up to Saturday’s fight with Conor Benn, however, the lines between the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ guys have blurred.

Eubank will face his fellow Briton at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in boxing’s latest grudge match – two and a half years after their cancelled bout because of Benn’s failed drugs tests.

Benn has since been cleared to fight and denies intentionally doping, but the scandal has tarnished his reputation. Consequently, it’s morphed Eubank into British boxing’s unlikely antihero.

“I don’t know what to expect. This could be the first fight in history where both guys in a mega fight get booed into an arena,” Eubank says.

“[But] however much of a bad guy I am, I didn’t cheat. I walked the hard path being that bad guy.”

While his public image may be improving, Eubank’s fractured relationship with his father, Chris Eubank Sr, has threatened to overshadow the fight.

“I’ve told him I want him there [on Saturday]. I’ve told him what it means to me, the public, to the fight fans,” Eubank says. “He doesn’t seem to care or he doesn’t seem to understand.”

Speaking to BBC Sport, an emotional Eubank opens up on their public fall-out and what happens if he loses to Benn on Saturday.