The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Chris Eubank Jr: I Was Paid $**** For The Fight! The Night Before, My Dad Finally Opened Up!
Thu, 08 May 2025
He silenced the critics, defied the odds, and walked through fire - Chris Eubank Jr. tells the full story of one of 2025’s most unforgettable fights. Chris Eubank Jr. is a world-class professional boxer, middleweight contender, and son of the legendary former professional boxer, Chris Eubank Sr. In April 2025, he won against Connor Benn in one of the most highly anticipated fights in British boxing history. He discusses: Why he refused to shake Conor Benn’s hand. Why the fight almost collapsed the night before. The real reason his father publicly disowned him. The pain of losing his brother, and raising his nephew as his own. 00:00 Intro 01:56 How Are You Feeling After the Fight? 06:09 Something Didn't Look Quite Right With You That Night 09:39 The Things That Were Against Me on the Night 11:47 The Night Before the Fight, My Father Finally Opened Up 20:23 How Me and My Dad Finally Made Up 28:50 What Caused the Rift Between You and Your Father? 36:57 Did Him Calling You a Disgrace Impact Your Mental Health? 41:59 Were You Thinking About Your Younger Brother During the Fight? 48:56 Rehydration Restriction 53:46 How Much Did You Get for the Fight? 1:00:23 What Was Going Through Your Head in the Final Moments 1:03:10 The Time I Spent in Hospital 1:05:55 Ads 1:06:53 Have You Got a Newfound Respect for Conor? 1:09:18 The Failed Drug Tests 1:13:50 The Egg Slap 1:15:19 The Rematch With Conor 1:21:39 Did Conor Surprise You? 1:24:16 The Walkout 1:29:18 Billy Joe Saunders 1:31:29 Who Would Your Next 3 Fights Be? 1:34:17 You Before Starting Boxing 1:40:29 Your Relationship With Frank Smith 1:43:48 If You Had One Album for the Rest of Your Life, What Would It Be? Follow Chris: Instagram - https://rebrand.ly/iabtt7v TikTok - https://rebrand.ly/jligckn The 1% Diary is back - limited time only: https://bit.ly/1-Diary-Megaphone-ad-r… The Diary Of A CEO Conversation Cards (Second Edition): https://g2ul0.app.link/f31dsUttKKb Get email updates: https://bit.ly/diary-of-a-ceo-yt Think like a CEO - join the 100 CEOs newsletter: https://bit.ly/100-ceos-newsletter Follow Steven: https://g2ul0.app.link/gnGqL4IsKKb Sponsor: Vanta - https://vanta.com/steven Vivobarefoot - https://vivobarefoot.com/DOAC with code DIARY20 for 20% off 100 CEOs: Ready to think like a CEO? Gain access to the 100 CEOs newsletter here: https://bit.ly/100-ceos-megaphone Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: How did Chris Eubank Jr. feel after the fight?
Chris Eubank Jr.
Chris, you haven't really spoken since that 12th round with Conor. How do you rate your own performance?
I was technically sound for the first seven rounds, but once the cut came, I was experiencing all the things that had been restricting me leading up to the fight. And I can hear my trainer, Conor, Use the jab, Chris, use your feet. I looked at him, I said, I'm sorry, it's too late.
Because I always knew there would be fights like this where you don't have anything left, or you wanna give up, or you're hurt, but you have to fight through the demons, the issues, the restrictions. Because I wasn't willing to go the rest of my life knowing that I didn't give it my all. It lives with you forever. So the technicality of the sport was out the window. We are going to war.
Was Connor faster than you were expecting? Yep. Was he stronger than you were expecting? Yep. And it was about who wants it more. My old man's there. I've got to show him I'm capable of great things. You know, we have been estranged for years. But what caused that relationship to strain? I sent him a letter and that broke him. You know, I get emotional thinking about this.
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Chapter 2: What challenges did Chris Eubank Jr. face before and during the fight?
What did that letter say? Quick one before we get back to this episode. Just give me 30 seconds of your time. Two things I wanted to say. The first thing is a huge thank you for listening and tuning into the show week after week. It means the world to all of us. And this really is a dream that we absolutely never had and couldn't have imagined getting to this place.
But secondly, it's a dream where we feel like we're only just getting started. And if you enjoy what we do here, please join the 24% of people that listen to this podcast regularly and follow us on this app. Here's a promise I'm going to make to you. I'm going to do everything in my power to make this show as good as I can now and into the future.
We're going to deliver the guests that you want me to speak to and we're going to continue to keep doing all of the things you love about this show. Thank you. Thank you so much. Back to the episode. Chris, you haven't really spoken since the fight, especially not in long form. So I guess the best place to start is just by asking you how you're feeling. That was pretty fucking crazy.
Fucking crazy is pretty accurate. Yeah, it was a fight that I'm not going to lie, I wasn't expecting to be involved in. Um, I genuinely thought that, uh, I was going to go in there. I was going to have my way with this kid, blow him out of the water, you know, watch him quit, watch him, um, crumble under the pressure. That's really what I thought was going to happen.
And thank God that I was wrong. Because if that had happened, it would not be a fight that is now going to be remembered for ever. This is what I'm being told. This is what I'm hearing. This is what I'm seeing. This is the best I ever saw. This is the best event I ever saw. This was amazing. For a fight to reach that level of love and respect, both fighters have to go through the fire.
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Chapter 3: How did Chris Eubank Jr. and his father reconcile before the fight?
Both fires have to do things that may seem superhuman, may seem like impossible. They have to go through that. They have to be true. And they cannot give up. And that's what we both showed on that night. Two men who were willing to die in that ring. That's what boxing is really about. And it's so rare to see these days.
You know, we just saw over the weekend some of the best fighters on the planet right now. Devin Haney, Canelo, Ryan Garcia. You know, their fights were underwhelming, to say the least.
Boring.
In those three fights, the total amount of punches landed... was less than just the fight me with me and connor so the fight with me and connor i think we landed maybe 1500 punches in their three fights in total only 1400 landed which is a pretty incredible statistic and it just shows you
how much that fight meant to both of us you know it showed the pressure and the grit and the determination and the stakes so i'm i'm blessed to be a part of such a historic fight a historic event and i'm i'm very um
grateful that the fans loved it so much you know everything i've heard about it so far has been amazing and i you know i went out into the streets um for the first time yesterday in brixton and to see the people's reactions for the first time really to really see it um you know it really it really uh it really means a lot you know i had a woman a woman came up when she was crying
She had tears in her eyes, like, you know, it's amazing what you did. You know, that fight superseded what boxing is, you know, because it was, you know, even outside of what we did in that ring, the father and son dynamic, that was real. And that's something that, you know, the entire world can relate to and has to deal with their own problems with their families.
So to see me and my father going through what we were going through and then to come together to unite at a time when it meant the most, that's an amazing thing. And nobody thought it was going to happen. I didn't think it was going to happen. So seeing that, you know, that's not boxing. You know, that is, that's love, you know.
Going back to the top of that, you said that you were expecting to walk in there and blow Connor away. So does that mean that you, in hindsight, underestimated his ability? Or was there something not quite right with you that night? Because I was watching. I was ringside. And you didn't look normal, especially in those opening rounds.
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Chapter 4: What caused the rift between Chris Eubank Jr. and his father?
You're going to say anything, but no, you know, it's, it's something that, you know, a lot of fighters do, you know, they, they will come out of a fight and they will say the things that were wrong with the camps and were wrong with their health or wrong with, you know, their personal lives or, you know, I've never been that guy to make excuses. I'm not looking for sympathy.
I'm not looking for a reason for people to say, oh, well, you know, um, but even if I had lost, it's not in me to, oh, well, this is why I, you know, I had to do it through this and that. And people saw so much of what I had to deal with.
Yeah.
My father, the weight cut, the rehydration clause, getting fined a million for being 0.5 overweight, using the gloves that weren't in the contract. Some guy trying to get into my changing room to check my hands and ruffling the feathers of my team. They threw everything at me. They did everything they could to try and get me off of track, to distract me, to take my mind off of the task at hand.
And I never let that happen. And I'm very, I'm proud of that. I'm proud that I didn't fall into the traps that were set. Every time they set a trap, I saw the trap, go around it, go forward. Oh, there's another trap. Round it, forward. Another trap, round it, forward. That is a part of being a warrior. It's not just getting in the ring and fighting. You have to be smart. You have to be cunning.
You have to know your enemy. You have to understand the things that people are trying to do to take you out of your comfort zone, out of your preparation. You have to avoid and you have to make sure that nothing gets into your head. Nothing affects what you're going to do on the night.
You know, and the crazy thing was not only was I dealing with all these bullets flying at me from my enemies in Conor Benn, in Matrim, in Eddie Hearn, in Nigel Benn. These are all enemies leading up to the fight. I had bullets coming from my family, my father. A couple of days before the biggest fight of my life, he's, you know, he's going into the media and saying I'm a disgrace.
I'm already in, you know, under a lot of stress, under a lot of pressure, and then I've got to hear this? It's like, Jesus, I mean, what, you know, how much worse is it going to get? It was tough. It was really tough. But 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 texted 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? You know, we are, we're less than a day away from, well, this is the night before the biggest fight of my life. The last thing I can be doing is being on the phone, listening to negativity and
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Chapter 5: How did the passing of Chris Eubank Jr.'s brother affect him?
Hey, how you doing, son? What's going on? How you feeling?
How am I feeling? When have you worried about how I've been feeling? I'm good, Dad. Everything's cool. Just getting ready to go to sleep. Got a big day tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah. I know. I know, son. I know you've got a big day tomorrow and, um, I want to be there for you. I'm sorry. I heard that. And I'm like, is this, is this a dream? Is this, uh, this is, this is Chris Eubank senior.
I'm speaking to who is this? Yeah, it's me, son. Let's do this. Let's do this together. Where are you? I said, I'm at my hotel. He said, all right, well, I'll come to your hotel. We'll speak. And yeah, let's do it. Okay. Okay, dad. I ordered him an Uber 20 minutes later. He was at my hotel. I got him a room. We went up to the room. We sat down. You know, he said, I was always going to come.
I was always going to be there for you. And in my mind, I'm thinking, if I had just gone to sleep, what happens? Would you still be here? Like, what? you know, we haven't had any communication and I know, I knew how hard it was for him to send me that text of, you know, call me when you see this, because he doesn't do that. You know, it's been years since he tried to have that contact with me.
So I think if I just ignored it, then we wouldn't be sitting here today talking about this amazing event that had unfolded because make no mistake, him being there made it, It made it different. It made it something that will now go down in history. You know, movies are made about this type of stuff. If I go in there alone, it's just a fight. It would have been a great fight still.
But to have that fantasy of a father and son coming together after going through so much...
so much you know my brother passing away um all the stuff in the media all the friction to see to see that be able to be kind of put to one side and to unite to come together to walk into that ring it's uh it's an incredible thing you know i i get i get emotional thinking about it because it's it was so unexpected
You know, I had envisioned in my mind for the last two years, me walking to that ring alone. I just, you know, it never crossed my mind that my old man would be behind me. I envisioned walking to the ring alone, being booed and getting into that ring and fighting with
anger in my heart that's that's what i thought that fight was going to be what it turned out to be was i'm walking to the ring my old man is behind me he's with me and you know for the first time in my whole career i'm walking through a crowd And there's no booze. I'm used to walking up into these rings and I'm looking out and people are going, you're going to get knocked out.
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Chapter 6: What were the financial implications of Chris Eubank Jr.'s fight?
Years.
Yeah, years. So how can I answer that? What do I want from you? Is what he said. I know that this man is not a man that can be bought. He's got too much pride. He's got too much morals. He's a man of God. That's all that's important to him. You can't buy him. So me knowing that, when he's saying, what do you think I want from you? I'm thinking, oh, no. Has that changed? Has he changed?
Is he about to, you know, ask me for some crazy amount of money? I hope not. Because then that changes my view of who this man in front of me is. You know? So I didn't even think about that. It's in my head, but I didn't want to say it. I didn't want to say it in the fear that he would be like, yeah, you got to give me a million. That would kill me.
Really?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That would have been bad. Why? Because then I know that he's not there because he loves me and because he wants to see me
win he wants to support me uh he wants to be my dad if it's about money then all of that is irrelevant yeah so i was too scared to even talk about to even mention money because then that would mean that there's there's no coming back you know if you're if you're in if you're if we were in a room together the night before the biggest fight of my life and you're just saying you're gonna pay me
That means for the rest of our lives now, our relationship will never, ever be the same. So I was scared to say that. And I was scared at the question. I had to joke. I had to make a joke out of it because I was so confused and worried about what was about to happen. I said, well, you want a hug? I'll give you a hug. He said, no. I want nothing. Absolutely nothing.
And when he said that, you know, my heart, it was just an overwhelming feeling of joy. Okay, my dad is here because he wants to be my dad. That's huge. That's everything that's, that's what I haven't had for years and years and years. So if there was ever a time that I was going to kind of get some of that feeling and love back, this was the time I needed it. And he was there to do it.
I'll never forget that. Him being there that night for sure. You know, it gave me those few extra percentages to put into that performance.
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