Former world champion George Groves will be an expert pundit on the Sky Sports Box Office broadcast of Chris Eubank Jr vs Conor Benn on Saturday. He gives his verdict on who’s winning the mental battle ahead of the fight…
The way that the build up’s gone, I feel it’s now not just a physical fight, it’s a mental and emotional fight. And so far Eubank’s won every battle. He’s absolutely winning the mental battle, there’s no disputing that.
Ultimately this is who can hold their nerve. It’s a massive, big fight, a lot of pressure and it’s all brand new for Conor Benn.
Essentially he hasn’t had the experience of where he’s at. He hasn’t had the big world title fights, he hasn’t had the big grudge matches. He hasn’t got an amateur pedigree. What he has done, of late, is become a huge name.
His demeanour’s changed, his attitude’s changed. When you talk big, you have to deliver. The pressure comes with that. I know that first hand. I talked big before both Carl Froch fights and when it doesn’t go your way you have to have the character to rebuild.
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A look back at Conor Benn’s most ferocious knockouts as he prepares to face Chris Eubank Jr in a huge showdown at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
In this world you always want to be the people’s champion. But it’s a fickle old game. One minute you are, one minute you’re not. We as fans, we love you when you’re winning, we love people losing.
There’s so many fighters now who can attest to that and Conor Benn went from people thinking he’s a bit of joke, just a name getting favours, to all a sudden now he’s a force and we like him, he’s the next coming – and then he fails the drug tests and now he’s the villain and Eubank’s the hero.
Logically Eubank should win, he’s naturally the bigger guy, he’s more experienced. He should win therefore there should be more pressure on him to win. But I think Conor’s added that pressure, after testing positive.
‘I taught Eubank how to box’
Eubank got his education with me, I taught him how to box. Honestly. Not just me, but he spent a lot of rounds sparring with me.
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Johnny Nelson previews Chris Eubank Jr’s huge fight against Conor Benn, which will be shown live on Sky Sports Box Office.
He became a much better fighter through sparring high quality fighters. You have to spar the better guys to improve and that’s where he made all his improvements, in the gym, sparring me, sparring Froch, James DeGale, others. I’m just reeling off super-middleweights, when he was a middleweight. He was strong. He was fast, he was fit, he was healthy.
I was ready to write him off after he lost to Liam Smith. I thought the fight’s left him now, the body’s starting to fail him. He’s probably a little too big – it’s getting hard to make middleweight. But he got himself back together. I don’t think Smith was anywhere near his best in the rematch and he’s spoken about that since, but a dominant performance under pressure. Got the job done.
This fight being as big as it is, it’s who’s going to hold their nerve. We’ve seen plenty of mind games already. There’s a lot at play.
Chris Eubank vs Conor Benn will be live on Saturday April 26 on Sky Sports Box Office. Book now!
