Conor Benn (23-1, 14 KOs) started fast but tailed off quickly, leading to the more experienced Chris Eubank Jr. (35-3, 25 KOs) to run away with the fight down the stretch to win a 12 round unanimous decision on Saturday night in their middleweight bout at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London.

(Credit: Mark Robinson/Matchroom)

The scores were: 116-112, 116-112, and 116-112. Benn’s promoter, Eddie Hearn, was bent out of shape about the scoring of the fight. In the post-fight interview, he complained that he didn’t see how the fight could have been scored 8-4 by all three judges. Hearn said, “It was razor-close.” I hate to break this to Hearn. The fight wasn’t close. It was a landslide for Eubank Jr.

Exposed Weakness

That’s not how the fans on social media saw the fight, and it wasn’t how I saw it either. I had it 9-3 for Eubank Jr. You couldn’t find a round to give to Conor after the third if you tried because he was getting outworked by Eubank Jr. His confidence was gone. You could see that Conor was mentally deflated from the fourth round on. He was the picture of a loser. His spirit had evaporated once Chris Jr. changed tactics.

Benn looked great early, landing big shots and controlling the action with his superior hand speed and power. In the third, he staggered Eubank Jr. with a right hand. That shot seemed to wake up the 35-year-old Eubank Jr, because he became a lot more aggressive from the fourth round on.

He was attacking Conor nonstop, forcing him to fight on the inside and dominating him with volume. What Eubank Jr. revealed is that Benn had no inside game at all, and his power is nowhere near the same as when he was on the outside. That makes sense for a lot of fighters, but it was especially noticeable with Conor.

He couldn’t match Eubank Jr’s volume punching in close, and that pretty much left him with no chance of winning. Chris Jr. dominated the last nine rounds of the fight, seeming to win them all. He had Benn hurt in rounds 11 and 12 with his inside combination punching.

Although Eubank Jr. wasn’t throwing hard shots, the sheer volume of punches that he was hitting Benn with had him in serious trouble. With a little more power, Eubank Jr. would have knocked out Conor because he was in bad shape.