Nigel Benn Vs Chris Eubank: Who's Fooling Who?

By Lea Worrall

Nigel Benn and Chris Eubank were so different it was amazing that they agreed to fight on that epic night at Birmingham's National Exhibition Centre in November 1990. Benn was all about the glitz, glamour, expensive cars, designer clothes and all the trappings that came with the fame and fortune of being a world championship boxer. Eubank, in contrast, was a family man with modest tastes, and his stockbroker's voice was very much out of place in the fight business. 

 

The only things they had in common were their sport, weight, and a genuine disdain for the other. Eubank played his part of being the villain so well that the 12,000-plus tickets virtually sold themselves, and millions of people tuned in on terrestrial television to see Benn put this outspoken upstart back into his place. 

 

Benn and Eubank produced an electric and bruising encounter, and both the winner and loser left the ring with each other's respect.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lea Worrall
• Release date: Nov 18, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223129233

Book preview

cover-image, Benn v Eubank 1 EBOOK

Nigel Benn Vs

Chris Eubank:

Who’s Fooling Who?

Lea Worrall lives and works in Gloucester and is married with two children. He currently writes for his own Boxing History Blog http://lw05boxing.blogspot.com

Other titles include:

Mike Tyson The Iron Years

Boxing Legends & Champions

The Fab Four Part One

The Fab Four Part Two

More Boxing Legends & Champions

A Modern Day Rivalry



A person looking at another person Description automatically generated

eBook First Published on 18th November 2023

Copyright © Lea Worrall 2023

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.

Cover design by M & L. Worrall

Contents

Nigel Benn

Chris Eubank

Debuts

Britain’s Answer To Don King

Michael Who?

America

World Champion

The Blade

Declaration of War

Grudge Match

Nigel Benn

Benn was the ultimate fighting machine. I mean he was a fighting animal - I don’t say that in any derogatory sense - but he was a man who lived to fight. His whole life revolved around boxing, and it revolved around violence too, - Harry Mullen

The Benn family started life in Shorey Village, St Andrews, Barbados, where Dickson Benn, Nigel’s father, worked on a sugar cane plantation during the harvest and trained as a carpenter. St. Andrews is in the Scotland district and was named so because it reminded early settlers of Scotland.

Dickson Benn emigrated to England in 1956, leaving his pregnant wife, Mina, in Barbados as he set up a better life for his family in London. During the freezing winter, Dickson decided not to pursue his carpentry skills and chose to work as an engineer with British Rail.

In 1957, Mina followed her husband to London, leaving their newborn son, Andy, in Barbados to be brought up by his grandparents. In 1960 Dickson and Mina bought a three-bed terraced house in Henley Road, Ilford, about twelve miles from the West end of London.

The Benn family worked hard, and Dickson established himself in a company called J B Burns, climbing to the rank of foreman before being made redundant after fifteen years of service. He then joined Ford Motors in Dagenham and built engines, becoming a supervisor for fourteen years before his retirement in 1992. Mina worked as a cleaner at the very hospital where she would give birth to the future two-weight world champion.

Nigel Gregory Benn was born at 9:30 am on 22nd January 1964, weighing 6 pounds 4 ounces (2.835 Kg) on an unusually mild winter’s day. Nigel was born as an anti-climax as both parents really wanted a girl after having boys Andy, eight years older than Nigel; Dermot, five years older; John, three years older; Danny, two years older and Mark, one year older. The Benn brood grew again six years after Nigel’s birth as Mina and Dickson welcomed Anthony into the world.

Andy came to London at eleven years old when his grandparents begged Mina and Dickson to relieve them of their responsibilities as Andy was becoming unruly. Andy quickly established himself on the streets of Ilford and was becoming a force to be reckoned with. By seventeen, he had been in and out of Borstal and had got himself a girlfriend about twice his age.

Nigel worshipped the ground his older sibling walked on, and the two became remarkably close. When Nigel was eight, he had to take the devastating news that Andy had died. The details of his demise are sketchy, but it is believed Andy was with his girlfriend, and there was a disturbance at her home. There was a suggestion that several people grouped together in another room, and Andy decided to make a quick getaway rather than face a mob in an unfair fight.

It is said that he leapt from an upstairs window to clear a glass conservatory roof and land in the garden where he could scale the back fence and escape the mob. In the seventeen-year-old’s rush, he fell through the conservatory roof, shattering the glass and severing the main artery in his groin before bleeding out. 

His parents told their siblings to remember Andy how he was, and the six brothers never attended the funeral. Their parents also never revealed the location of Andy’s grave to their sons, even though they regularly attended the spot in Barkingside Cemetery themselves.

At the age of eleven, Nigel started to go off the rails. He would get into fights and frequently be in the police station after getting caught shoplifting or stealing from the local market.

The following year Nigel’s brother, John, arranged for him to have a try-out at the boxing gym. Benn was put in with a boy with five years of experience under his belt, but this did not deter the twelve-year-old from beating the established fighter around the ring and stopping him. You’re a born fighter, John said to him, but although he took Nigel a few more times to the gym, the younger sibling showed no real interest in the sport. He was more interested in girls and having fun with his mates.

Along with shoplifting, stealing from market stalls, and fighting, Benn also got into trouble at school. The teachers at Loxford School in east London reckoned he had no future. Luckily for Benn, John had joined the army in the regiment of the First Battalion, Royal Fusiliers in Minden, West Germany, and their mother begged John to help get Nigel to join him there.

Benn was sixteen when he enquired about enlisting at the Forest Gate recruitment centre. He started his eighteen-week training at Bassingbourn Barracks in Royston, Hertfordshire, on 11th May 1981. Private Nigel Gregory Benn was given the service number 24604617 - a number he would never forget - and placed in the Tobruk Platoon, ruled by Platoon Sergeant Weaver, who was described by Benn as a bastard and a gentleman who put the fear of God in him.

The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers had a proud and distinguished history and was formed in 1968 when the Northumberland, Lancashire, Warwickshire, and London fusiliers amalgamated. They date back to the 17th century when King James II asked Lord Dartmouth to raise a Regiment of Fusiliers at the Tower of London in 1685. The King referred to the soldiers as ‘My Royal Regiment of Fusiliers’, and they became known as the Seventh of Foot until the Childers reforms of 1881. The reforms were conducted by Secretary of State for War Hugh Childers and were a continuation of the earlier reforms undertaken by Secretary of State for War Edward Caldwell between 1868 and 1874.

The Fusiliers' Headquarters are still in the Tower, along with their regimental memorabilia and silver. Benn’s list of all his boxing contests is amongst their documents, and the records testify that he remained undefeated.

Benn was stationed in Minden, West Germany, at a former SS and penal battalion, where he joined his brother. It soon dawned on Nigel that being a good sportsperson in the army had its advantages. After two months of service, he was allowed to get in the boxing ring and showed enough promise to continue. After beating a six-foot-three-inch (190.5 cm) man around the ring, the Sergeant Major took him straight out of uniform and put him into a tracksuit. Benn had no formal boxing training apart from a couple of visits to the local gym with John, who boxed at heavyweight in the army, losing just two contests.

Being a boxer meant Benn could get out of official army exercises to get on with his boxing training. It meant he could eat steaks instead of slops and get out of bed at 8:00 am instead of the customary 5:45 am wake-up call.

Benn was first trained by Corporal Jones, and when he gained more experience, he started to train others. When it came to battalion boxing, he was trained by Quartermaster Brom and Corporal Mark Gleason, and Captain O’Grady was the chief trainer and made Benn work hard.

In January 1984, Benn was stationed in Ballykelly, Northern Ireland, for two years to aid the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) in their battle against the Irish Republic Army (IRA).