WHEN Chris Eubank Sr opened the door of that car as it rolled up inside the majestic environs of the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium to disgorge first his son, Eubank Jr, and then himself — the millions watching were witness to a moment of greatness in UK sporting history.

The high drama of the moment had the strong whiff of Shakespeare about it — along the lines of a king being reunited with his hitherto estranged prince as the latter prepared to do battle for the former’s name and legacy.

Returning matters to planet earth, how, the nice little bung paid to the father by boxing’s new Saudi overlord — the man they call His Excellency — was probably the deciding factor in the father deciding to turn up on the night at his son’s side. But, still, we can all be forgiven amid the muck and ruin of late state capitalism for believing that not everything comes with a price attached.

The Eubank-Benn boxing and sporting rivalry has been with us now for so long that we could never imagine it ever having been absent — part of the background noise to our existence in Britain. The sons on the night of April 26 2025 brought it back to life and then some.

The Eubank name may have once again emerged victorious, but the sport of boxing was the real victor. The mere sight of Eubank Sr present at his son’s side as he made his way to the ring to the sound of the Tina Turner classic tune Simply the Best — this was theatre enough on its own.

As for Conor Benn, with his father Nigel by his side, he fought with the fury and fire of a man with everything to prove and the determination to prove it. The result was a fight that Hollywood could never hope to match when it comes to thrills and spills.

“A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.” These words of famed US General Patton were constructed and crafted with the proceedings that unfolded at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on this warm night in late April. Back and forth and forth and back the action swung. This was less a fight involving fists and more an entanglement of fighting spirits.

Eubank Jr had suffered immensely in the process of boiling himself down to the contracted 160lbs middleweight limit. Add to his woes a rehydration clause that fell into the category of the devil’s work, and here you had a fighter who was forced to enter the closest thing to hell that is possible to fathom in a boxing ring.

Over 12 hard rounds he went to the well, time and again. His father afterwards described his success in doing so as “legendary behaviour in the ring’, and he should know. How many times over his own career in the ring had he proved his mettle — physical and spiritual — beyond measure and argument?

Professional boxing is the ugly face of a beautiful game. It is where in the realm of sport, capitalism goes to die on the hill of its inability to extinguish what it is to be truly and authentically human. And yet, while Eubank Jr and Benn may have entered that boxing ring in London as millionaires about to become multimillionaires, by the mid-point of the fight, the money and the bling and the fancy cars mattered not.

As the father looked on at ringside with a combination of pride and concern, the sons went to war. Boxing, they proved in the process, is legalised violence which beyond a certain and given stage becomes an exercise in self-realisation. 

We need to believe, all of us, that there is more to this veil of tears we call life than cold hard cash. We need to feed the body and nourish the soul. We need in the last analysis to escape, however temporarily, the sordidness of a society fashioned on the altar of mammon.

Boxing at its very best affords us this temporary escape. 

Where throughout history humanity has reached its lowest, spectacle has been utilised and deployed as the substitute for meaning. We need to feel that we feel, even when the feeling induced is an impostor.

The ancient Romans held their spectacles at the Colosseum, and we hold our own at venues such as the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Times may change but the ethos does not. Distraction and deflection from our material reality is how they beguile us into suspending disbelief.

Chris Eubank Jr and Conor Benn, when viewed in this particular light, are but very rich clowns in the circus of false consciousness we have the temerity to consider the best of all possible worlds. It is why the spectacle and high drama of nights such as we witnessed and experienced when both men clashed in London two weeks ago are a necessary antidote. Passion misdirected is still passion, after all.

For the merchants of capital, safe and secure in their power, top-flight boxing — and also football — falls into the category of a control mechanism. We love it and we need it all the same. 

The revolution can wait — at least a while.