Conor Benn, who will be handed the reigns of a 30-year-old rivalry next month, has been putting the work in, bulking up and sparring bigger men.
We’ve said it many times before – training clips mean very little on the night. On the other hand, the fight between Chris Eubank Jr and Conor Benn isn’t your average fight.
There’s a man in Eubank Jr who is looking to, and seemingly not worried about, coming down to a weight (157 lbs) he’s never fought at before as a pro. In the other corner there’s Benn, who will surely be aiming to bulk up and meet his opponent in the middle. He fights at the 147 welterweight limit.
So how is the smaller man doing it? His latest updates from camp give us an insight. First up, sparring.
To Benn’s left is Brad Pauls – an unbeaten 160 pounder on the come up who boasts 9 KOs from 16. On his other side is Linus Udofia, the former English middleweight champion. The gloves? 18 oz.
This picture follows another with ‘The Destroyer’ alongside Felix Cash – the British and Commonwealth Middleweight Champion who has a 67% knockout ratio.
Sparring is sparring, as people in the sport often remind us, but on the surface it looks like Benn is doing what he has to here – getting rounds in with bigger men.
The gym footage is as you would expect – a professional fighter is hardly going to post videos of them taking it easy in there. It is, however, interesting to see the kind of work Benn is undertaking.
He’s focusing on some heavy resistance training and drills to build on his explosiveness in the ring. If it gives us any insight into his tactics for the fight – which it may not – he won’t be changing his style to accommodate for Eubank Jr’s size advantage.
The pair face off on October 8 live on DAZN PPV with their fathers, who shared the ring together twice back in the nineties, in the corners.