The Fight #60 LNT

Conor Benn headlined a wild night at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium by dominating a clearly drained Chris Eubank Jr over twelve rounds, dropping him twice in the final session and winning a wide unanimous decision, which only reinforced the warnings his father and the British Boxing Board had voiced about his extreme weight cuts. On the undercard Jack Catterall stopped Ekow Essuman, Adam Azim forced a late finish against Kurt Scoby, Richard Riakporhe blasted out Tommy Welch in two, Ishmael Davis edged a close points win over Sam Gilley, and Mikie Tallon produced a highlight reel knockout of Fezan Shahid.

Chapters

• 0:00 UK Card Overview And Hype
• 0:41 Prospect Spotlight: Mike Holland KO
• 1:15 Ishmael Davis Earns It On The Cards
• 2:32 Heavyweight TKO And UK Production
• 2:54 Adam Azim’s Statement At 140
• 3:32 Catterall’s Knockdowns And Controversy
• 4:20 Main Event Dynamics And Weight Cut
• 6:12 Benn’s Ceiling And Welterweight Reality
• 7:36 Legacies, Politics, And What’s Next

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Layton LA, the fights tapping in, episode 60. Tap in with me. Eubank junior versus Connor Ben 2. Unfinished business. Listen, this is an impactful UK card. The UK fighters on this card showed out. I'm becoming a big, big fan of UK boxing and how they got things going on. Shout out to Dayson. Shout out to Matram. Shout out to all the fighters, of course, everybody that put it on the line. A lot of guys put it on the line tonight. A lot of guys took some risks. You know, a lot of guys didn't have full camps or bad camps. And let's talk about the fight, okay? Just to start up the card, we had the preliminary bout. We had Mike, Mike Holland getting around 5KO. It was impactful. He's an up-and-coming rookie. I can't wait to see. I'm going to follow his career. This guy got power. He has speed. He did get tapped up. He did get a bloody nose. So he has things to learn. He's learning on the job. He's young. I'm really, really excited about him and the division he's in. Fantastic fifth round KO. Shout out to Mike Tollin. Now, Ishmael Davis gets the belt. I thought Ishmael got this easily. I thought he deserved this. He's been on the bad side of some crazy judging. He has been through the ringer, you know, taking fights, taking bad fights, taking hard fights, getting stops, and you know, getting bad decisions from the judges and really just keep pursuing his dream. He outworked Sam for me from say around 4 to 12. He started outworking him. And I that's just my opinion. He won on the cards 115, one 115, and 115. So they all had it pretty wide. It was a great fight. Great to see both fighters. He did get dropped. He did show the championship. You know, he had heart. He got dropped and he went and won that fight. And he dropped his man. I call that a drop. He dropped that guy. And I don't care what they do. It gets a little weird. You can tell that the UK have their favorites. And I'm going to talk about that later. I'm an American, right? So, like, me watching this UK card is my first interaction with UK media, UK production, UK commentators. And it is it's a sight to see. I'm going to talk about the main card and what I felt about it in a minute. We're going to move on to Richard getting the TKO on round two. Those are big boys. They were going to do that all day, man. That's the heavyweight division. It looks good. Shout out to the UK fighters. Shout out to Richard. TKO. He put his man down and he didn't line back up. Now, this one hurt to see Scooby not get the snack, but he gets stopped by Adam in round 12. He was taking a beat in the whole fight. He was getting outworked. He was getting outboxed. He was getting out fought. He was getting outpunched. He landed some good work, but I think he needed a lot more than what he came in there with. I think he needed more than an attitude. He needed the plan. I think Adam Azim has the goods. I think he gives Haney fits. I think he gives a lot of people fits. We I'm really, really excited for the future of that division. 140's on fire. If Tank ever wants to come back into boxing, this is going to be great for everybody. The 140 division is on fire, man. I don't see him beating Shakur, though. So there is some people that he's going to have to run into that I don't see him beating. Speaking of running into, listen, Jack Catterall made this man S. A. Kyle Usuman, the engine, run into everything. He dropped him once, then he dropped him again, and then he finished the fight. There was some ugliness in it. He did hit him after the ref broke it up. But this is boxing, just like the Floyd fight versus Ortiz. You have to protect yourself at all times. I know it sucks if you're a fan. It doesn't look good. It's not the best optics. And listen, this is a fight, man. These guys are trained to get their opponent out of there. It's nothing else but that. If you got an issue with that, you can have an issue with that. But that's boxing. That's just how it is. And that's how I feel about this main card. This is just boxing. This is just how it is. Connor Ben did a great job. He turned his game plan up. He turned his aggression down. He did not get into a war. He was calculated. He was decisive. And he punished Eubank. And honestly, Eubank punished himself. He did not have to take this fight at this weight. It killed him. It killed him. It was so obvious from round one. Obvious. No popping the shots. He couldn't take shots. He got dropped at the 12th round. And this is something I would you would never see from Chris Eubank Jr. if he was fully at his weight level. The British Border Commission was against this fight. A lot of people was against this fight. His father was against this fight. And he was right. Connor, Connor is a great fighter, but I don't think his potential is at world level. I think he's going to run into some shit down there. And I I hope I hope he takes every precaution as he drops down because he looked like the bigger man. He's been at that weight class for a good five years. He's going to have to cut again to welterweight. And he's going to have to fight these welterwaiters who aren't there aren't just they aren't just good. They're great. These guys can hurt him. And they have just as much power. I, you know, him versus Role would be good. Him versus Ryan Garcia would be good. I think he could beat Mario Barrios. He is the weakest champion we have at the world level. Shout out to kind of been for the win, but Chris Eubank Jr. looked like a skeleton. He looked like a corpse. I tell fighters all the time. Rod Tang is 28 in his prime. You know what put him in the hospital? A fucking weight cut. Chris Eubank Jr. took that weight cut and he took the loss because of it. He couldn't defend himself. He shouldn't have been in the ring. His dad was right. And honestly, he should hang him up. You should not be trying to cash out at this level. It's almost like it's disrespectful for fans. It's disrespectful to yourself. And it's disrespectful to your opponent. But your opponent wanted you like this. So Connor Ben. It took you 12 rounds to put a weight-drain older fighter after a war down. And he still left on his feet. When you start fighting these guys in their prom, we start fighting guys your size, your weight, your age, you're going to have a fucking problem. If you're having this much of an issue trying to get Chris Eubank Jr. on the downside of his career with a weight cut, with a rehydration clause in it, that we had so many issues with when Tank Davis did the same thing. But people are telling me it's cool. Anyway, shout out to both men. They did their fathers well. Their legacy stands. I would like a trilogy at a correct weight, but we're probably never going to get that. The boxing politics is the boxing politics. If Chris Eubank Jr. would have won, Crawford would have, you know, gotten in the ring with him and maybe they would have done something. I think that's the reason he was there. I don't know what's next for Chris. He could go fight at his weight class, but some people are going to call him back goods. He might be in his own head. He might just be done and trying to get the bag. But for what it's worth, Chris Eubank Jr., you did your father well. You upheld the name, the first fight, weight drained, and you won it off heart. No one can take that away from you. This is episode 60 of the fight. Tap in then.