Chris Eubank Jr’s overcome Conor Benn was a Rocky film remade and a crowd-thriller… however here is why I do not wish to see it once more, writes JEFF POWELL

There has been a lot of entertaining rubbish played by Tottenham in their shiny new stadium this season and boxing caught that mood perfectly on Saturday night.

Just when you thought the Rocky franchise was dead and buried along came yet another remake. This one starring two real fighters but bearing no more relation to world-class sport than all those Spurs performances to the real business of the Premier League.

Eubank Jr v Benn, perhaps the most over-hyped fight in ring history, deserves a place in Sylvester Stallone‘s academy of make-believe epics. The punches looked viciously scary but were thrown with a wild abandon. They were eye-catching but inflicted a minimum of serious damage.

Neither Chris Jr nor young Conor were knocked over and when Eubank was taken to hospital at the end it was out of sheer exhaustion from punching himself out. Not with a broken jaw, as the hucksters romanticised, to go with an accidentally cut eyebrow.

Rocky The Umpteenth would have filled cinemas just as it packed this football ground to a capacity 65,000. And the movie-goers would have gone home just as happy as the fight fans who went chattering into a chill North London night.

Not that this should detract from the manful efforts by these two sons of more revered and accomplished fathers to live up to the tradition. 

True to the concept of a family affair on which this match was made and marketed, the boys went at it hammer and tongs. Increasingly so after Eubank had piled up the early points with the longer jab and in doing so realised that for all Benn’s dervish mania and nervous energy this opponent did not have the power to hurt him badly.

Unsurprising that, since Benn was not exactly a knock-out artist at welterweight so was unlikely to take out a super-middleweight at their personal 160lbs catchweight compromise.

The longer it went the more they looked like two school kids flailing away at each other in a playground spat. Most of the punches were round-house swings, many of which missed or bounced off shoulders.

Although the crowd loved it – and why not since not all thrillers are eloquently written – this had little to do with the Noble Art as their fathers practised it. Hence, perhaps, the odd reactions of the elders.

Chris Sr, having decided to turn up at the last minute despite threatening to boycott a fight he did not believe it proper to make in the first place, remarked: ‘Well done to Conor, he is the better boxer.’

Er, Mr Eubank, your lad was rightly awarded the decision and is a significantly superior technician.

Nigel Benn deflected his offspring from complaining about the result by saying: ‘I was impressed by Eubank. Conor didn’t do enough. There was too much wailing away with his punches. He will have to learn from this and be better if there is a rematch.’

That should be a big if. Both boxers were put in jeopardy by the convolutions in their contracts. Benn by needing to bulk up two divisions. Eubank by being required to drain down in weight to begin with and then denied full rehydration.

The promoters got away with this one. There is no doubt they could rehash the big-sell marketing. But there is a danger that the hardest game is transitioning into an entertainment first, boxing second industry. 

Massive investment by the new Saudi paymasters has performed a welcome service by delivering big fights that the public had been waiting too long to see. But as Turki Al-Sheikh rushes to book a date at this same stadium for a September rematch he should be wary of fostering a circus mentality.

The appetite will be there among a public who had a rip-roaring time watching a good old-fashioned slugfest. Only next time one or other of these fighters might be badly hurt.

Eddie Hearn, on behalf of Benn, said: ‘The contract for a rematch is in place, under the same conditions. And Conor has just shown how brilliantly he could cope with a bigger man in the greatest British fight of all time.’

Quite what the truly great UK fighters past make of that we know not yet.

Hearn showed more sense and restraint when he said: ‘I know Conor would like his revenge and we could do it again. But there is a decision to be made as to whether it would be better to go back down to welterweight and start winning world titles.’

No such belts were at stake in Tottenham. Just domestic family legacy. Nor did Hearn’s submission that Benn’s performance has relaunched him as a star of the people chime with the persistent jeering of a man who failed two drugs tests and is still to offer a proper explanation as to how that came about.

Nor is it beyond the realms of possibility that this will be the fight of Benn’s life. So profound was the anger, resentment, pride, grudge, even hatred invested in this effort that it may not be possible to replicate bout after bout.

Also, his first defeat came with no dissent among the fans against the three judges calling it in unison at 116-112. It was not an easy fight to score, which accounts for some round-by-round variations on those cards.

For the record, mine reads 116-113 for Eubank.

Yes, the atmosphere was magic. To paraphrase the old maxim, never mind the quality, feel the buzz. Except that if the show becomes the be-all and end-all then boxing itself will be as much at risk as these two combatants.

In the end, class has to tell.