Chris Eubank Jnr used to live in the shadow of a giant.
Immense pressure, high expectations and scrutiny have followed his every move, from the moment he first laced up his gloves.
In public Eubank Jnr shows swagger and confidence, but away from the bright lights the 34-year-old has been on a deeply personal journey – a quest to forge his own identity, escape a troubled youth, and wrestle with the realities of boxing’s toll on his body and mind.
The line between guidance and control in the relationship with his father has blurred over time, and he stands at a pivotal crossroads in his career and life. Now, Eubank Jnr faces the road ahead alone.
For years, the father and former two-weight world champion was a central figure in his son’s career – a constant presence in the gym, in the ring, and at press conferences. But Eubank Snr has not appeared in his son’s corner since 2019. The 58-year-old also sparked controversy by agreeing with those who called his son ‘charlatan’ after last year’s knockout defeat by Liam Smith.
‘My dad and I are in a weird and somewhat strange place in our lives at the moment,’ Eubank Jnr tells Mail Sport.
‘It’s very hard to go through an entire career being with your old man, and then to not have him around anymore in terms of the boxing side of things. I just felt that that’s what I needed.’
A major friction point is his proposed fight with Conor Benn, which his father opposes due to concerns over weight management and associated health risks — fears heightened by the tragic loss of his other son, Sebastian, from a heart attack while swimming in Dubai.
While Eubank Jnr understands his father’s worries, he fears the tension between them may not fully ease until the day he retires from the sport.
‘I think this situation will probably continue for a while,’ he admits. ‘I think it will take me retiring for us to be able to kind of just become father and son, because at the moment, he can’t separate business and boxing from just being my dad.
‘I said to him I don’t need advice. I don’t need a coach. I don’t need a mentor. I just need a dad. But, he can’t do that. He’s still trying to figure that dynamic out, so I’ve just got to let him go, let him do his thing.’
Eubank Jr holds no hostility towards his father. Instead he has expressed his disappointment in those exploiting his father’s mental state and clarified to Mail Sport that their estrangement is not about rejecting his support but about his own natural desire for independence.
‘I felt like I wanted to – and I would say this to him as well – make my own decisions. My career couldn’t be controlled by my father anymore,’ he says.
‘I’m going to write a book one day and the book can’t be everything that my dad said I should do, I did. I’ve got to find out my own path and I’ve got to make my own choices. I’ve got to write my own future.
The strain in their relationship has been painful, for both of them. Boxing, the very sport that brought them so close together, has also created the divide. For Eubank Snr, whose obsession with control was a hallmark of his career, the idea of stepping aside and letting his son fail – or succeed – on his own terms is a bitter pill to swallow.
‘He guided me, he helped me. He stuck by me through the early stages. But as an adult now, I’m confident enough to make my own choices. Whether it be for good or for worse I need to do it,’ Eubank Jnr says.
‘If I succeed, great. If I fail, it’s still great, because it was on me. I can’t fail because of something I did that someone else told me to do. I wasn’t going to give him that power or that pressure.
‘I wanted everything to be on me. As a man, I think that’s fair. But that was hard for him to hear because throughout my whole life, he’s always been there. He’s always been the one kind of controlling me and telling me what to do, and I would follow. So, that’s been hard for him to deal with. That mindset, what I was saying and I wanted to proceed with things. He struggled with that.’
Eubank Jnr insists the bond the two share is not irreparable, but undeniably frayed, tested by conflicting visions of what the future should hold. Upcoming clashes with Canelo Alvarez and Benn loom after taking on Kamil Szeremeta on October 12.
Nevertheless, he is eager to honour his father’s legacy and advance the Eubank name, as well as step out of the shadow.
‘Growing up with the Eubank name brought a huge amount of pressure,’ he says. ‘But I used that. I used the fact that I knew everyone was expecting me to do all these things, and everyone was comparing with me to my old man, who was a world champion, and I’m just an amateur coming up.
‘All eyes were on me, and because the expectations were so high that I had no choice. I had to perform, I had to win. I had to train hard, to fight hard. I couldn’t let my old man down, and more importantly, I couldn’t let myself down.’
Beyond the personal battles, Eubank Jnr also grapples with the physical toll of his job. Just a couple of days away from turning 35, the cumulative effect of countless blows to the head is beginning to show.
‘I definitely notice it,’ he says. ‘I forget things more than I used to a couple of years ago.
‘I forget names or telephone numbers or things I’m not supposed to forget and that comes from taking blows to head. That’s something that I’m very aware of. I can quite literally feel it.
‘I don’t want it to get worse so I do what I can to limit the damage. I just do body sparring outside of the fight camp because it gets you in shape and it gets you back into that fighting mentality but you’re not taking blows to the head.
‘You know, a lot of people think the issues with your brain stem from the fights but it’s not the fights. It’s the sparring. It’s in the day in and day out spars where you get hit continuously. That’s what builds up and affects you mentally over the years.
‘When I was a kid I never thought about any of this. But as you get older it’s something you have to think about. I do exercises to try and help maintain my brain function.
‘I have brain apps on my phone. I play little games to stimulate my mind, there are also little memory games and stuff like that to keep my mind ticking over. That sort of stuff is very good for you. Your brain is like a muscle, if you train it, use it, it improves.’
But, Eubank Jnr’s health concerns are not enough to drive him away from the sport. Despite turning 35 on September 18, Eubank Jnr is confident he has the speed and aggression that has dominated his career and insists he will show it against Szeremeta on October 12.
‘We’re going to find out in a month if I am still capable but I don’t see any changes,’ he says. ‘I don’t feel any different. I’m still strong, I’m still in shape, I’m still hungry, I’ve still got that fire on my belly each and every day I wake up going to the gym, and that’s something that you know, you do.
‘Fighters do lose that as they get older. Sometimes they just get fed up with training, they get bored or they fall out of love with the sport. I’m enjoying the sport even more because I have now the freedom to do the things I want to do, to pick the team I want, the places I can train, the food, the sparring partners, the equipment, everything I can control now, so it makes it more enjoyable.
‘Plus, as long as I’m physically capable to to be a part of the sport, I’m going to do that because I just love it. I love the competition. I love the adrenaline rush. I love the respect that you get from peers, from the public being a fighter. I want that to.
‘You also have the financial side of things. Like I said, boxing is a very short career. You have to make as much money as you can in a very short space of time. I want my kids to be comfortable, to be set.
‘You know, my father made a hell of a lot of money in his career. He still ended up going bankrupt. I was still put in a position to where, if I didn’t make it in the sport, or if I didn’t make it in anything I was doing, I would have been a nine to five guy.
‘Then there is the Eubank family name. I had the pressure of having to carry that name on, and if I didn’t succeed, the name wouldn’t go anywhere. I don’t want to put that pressure on my future family.
‘I want them to be good regardless. So this is how you do that. You fight as much as you can, you win as much as you can, you make as much money as you can. Then get out with your health.’
But, Eubank Jnr knows his final years in the ring must be carefully managed. The fans may be eager for him to face the biggest names in the sport, but he’s determined to do it on his own terms.
‘When you’re out of the ring for a year you have to do what’s best for you,’ he says. ‘I did have an offer from Canelo, but I’m not fighting Canelo for a payday. I want to beat that guy,’ he reveals.
‘I know I can beat him but you don’t want to be heading into a ring with a guy like that after 12 months out. That being said, those big names aren’t going anywhere.
‘These are my last few years. I can’t afford any slip-ups. I can’t afford any bad performances.
‘You saw what happened with (Deontay) Wilder and that’s all because of time out of the ring. It’s a real thing. I’m not letting that happen to me. It’s simple you don’t go into massive fights after being out in the ring for so long.
‘I don’t care what the money is. I want to win. That’s more important than a payday for me. And I’m in a blessed position to where I don’t need loads of money.
‘There’s a lot of big fights to be made, and they will be made. But, they’ll be made at the right times.’
Next, Eubank Jr will face Szeremeta after a 13-month layoff, having avenged his loss to Liam Smith last September. Promoter Ben Shalom has confirmed that after this fight, Eubank Jr will be in line for a world title shot.
But who is at the top of Eubank Jr’s hit list? Unsurprisingly, he’s targeting familiar foes: Billy Joe Saunders , the man who handed him his first defeat; Canelo, a pound-for-pound legend; and Benn, a bitter rival whose name is entangled in the long-standing Eubank-Benn family feud.
‘That fight will happen,’ he says. ‘I would imagine that in the next 12 months, it has to happen. It’s too big of a fight for it not to happen. Teach that kid a lesson.’