When Chris Eubank was brutally knocked out by Liam Smith, Conor Benn was one of the first to comment – but he wasn’t sending well wishes.
Smith upset the odds by producing an early stoppage in his middleweight bout against Eubank Jr – one which he had entered as underdog despite many in the sport predicting he had the beating of the Brighton man.
That he did. A flurry of powerful shots in the fourth left Eubank out on his feet. Despite a brave desire to fight on, it was all over – his first knockout defeat coming in a quite savage fashion.
Benn – who had a fight scheduled with Eubank last October before news broke of him testing positive for a banned substance – took to Twitter, claiming that he would’ve finished him in two rounds had their fight gone ahead. Alongside that, he shared a throwback video of Naseem Hamed calling for Eubank Jr to retire.
There’s clearly no shortage of motivation for him to put the boot in given Eubank hasn’t missed an opportunity for a dig since their postponement.
Although the reply function was turned off for Benn’s tweet, users could still quote it and add their own comments, and around a thousand of them did so. Spoiler alert – not many backed him.
Oh man, @chriseubankjr it’s a good job you didn’t fight me. You’d last two rounds at 160. ? ? pic.twitter.com/5wtdE0HHGn
— Conor Nigel Benn (@ConorNigel) January 21, 2023
Fans called the comment ‘cowardly’ and ‘disgraceful.’ Despite Benn continuing to claim innocence in the doping saga – and there being a chance of that being proven correct – he’s not getting much sympathy from fans.
It was this that stuck with fans most when commenting on his Eubank reaction. Many reminded him why their fight didn’t go ahead, whilst others claimed there was ‘no way back’ for him. Mostly, people referenced the failed tests and called it hypocrisy.
Some fighters even got involved, with Josh Kelly calling out Benn for a fight when he was ‘off his menstrual cycle’ – a dig at the banned substance in his test, clomifene, typically being a female fertility aid.
This guy keeps chatting with two failed tests you had no chance of fighting lad ?
When your menstrual cycles over and you come back from hiding you know where I am brudda ? no vitamins helping you up at 154 ? https://t.co/PSm4oPoIln
— Josh Kelly ? (@JOSHPBK) January 21, 2023
Sunny Edwards said ‘a juiced up Conor Benn probably stops a 50% Eubank Jr.’
https://twitter.com/SunnyEdwards/status/1617116272725999616
Regardless of the bad blood between them, it seems Benn may have been better off keeping quiet on this one. Unless, as Eubank has advised, he’s decided to embrace being ‘the bad guy.’
