Chris Eubank Jnr reveals emotional phone call with estranged father on the night before his victory over Conor Benn - as he admits the TRUTH behind shock reunion with boxing legend dad
Chris Eubank Jnr has revealed the details behind his dramatic reunion with his father, Eubank Sr, prior to his victory over Conor Benn.
Eubank Jr finally settled the score with Benn after a bitter build-up as he claimed victory via unanimous decision in a fight of the year contender on April 26th.
The fight itself was an epic affair, but the night had already sparked into life long before the opening bell when Eubank Sr and Jr arrived at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium together, just days after Sr had branded his son 'a disgrace'.
Eubank Sr had been angry with his son for boiling himself down to 160lbs to fight Benn, while also slapping his rival around the face with an egg at their launch press conference.
He had vowed not to attend the fight, but then performed a remarkable U-turn and walked his son to the ring before watching on from ringside.
Now, Eubank Jnr has lifted the lid on his shock reunion with his father and detailed a phone call with Sr one the eve of the fight.
Speaking on the Diary of a CEO podcast, Eubank Jnr explained: 'On the subject of my father, regardless of what he said about me and about the fight, he was there when it mattered the most.
'And that means everything. I didn't know he was going to come. He called me. He texts me the day before the fight, the night before the fight. He said 'call me when you see this.'
'So, I saw the text and I thought you know what? We are less than a day away.... this is the night before the biggest fight of my life.
'A couple of hours go by, maybe nine, ten o'clock, I'm like 'you know what, I've been through so much s*** these last two months, what more could possibly be thrown at me?' At the end of the day, he's my old man. He's text me, I'm going to hear him out.
'So, I call him. I was about to go to sleep and I thought 'I'll call him.' As soon as he picked the phone up, there was a tone in his voice that I hadn't heard for years. It was a tone of happiness, likeness, joy, 'hey, how you doing son? What's going on? How're you feeling?'
'I said 'how am I feeling? When have you worried about how I'm feeling? I'm good dad, everything is cool. Just getting ready to go to sleep. Got a big day tomorrow.' He said 'yeah, I know you've got a big day tomorrow and I want to be there for you.''
Eubank Snr, just days after the bout, also revealed how he reached out to his son via text in order to wish him well for the fight.
'At 10 past eight on Friday night I sent him a message,' Eubank Sr revealed on his Call Chris Eubank YouTube channel. 'The message said: 'Call me when you're in private, please'.
'Maybe 10 past 10, I got a call back. Jr called and he said 'I didn't want to call, dad, because I can't hear anything negative'. In my mind you have the world's media there so I put on a disguise.
'When he saw me he said 'no one is going to recognise you'. You couldn't see me. I had an Issey Miyake coat on which is down to your ankles. I had a hoodie which is a green mod coat. The coat they wore in the 1960s on their mopeds. And then I had a mask that went up and a cap. The shoes I wore were plimsolls.
'He had booked me a room so we went up to the room and we sat and we spoke. These were my words to him: 'what do you want me to do, son? This is your show.' And he said lots of things have to change now because we had this set up. We had an orchestra, a rapper, and all were to substitute for me not being there. So when I came in, everything else went. The only thing that actually stayed was the orchestra.'
Eubank Jr and Sr shared a number of memorable moments on the night, including arriving together, having a joint ringwalk, and them embracing after the final bell.
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