Some will say that the culmination of the Benn-Eubank rivalry has arrived decades too late. They will say that it should have happened back in the nineties, when the first two fights took place. They will say that not following the drawn rematch in ’93 with an immediate third fight was a missed opportunity.

Others, meanwhile, will say it has arrived a couple of years too late. They will point to the events of 2022, when the sons of Benn and Eubank were all set to fight only for Conor Benn to fail two performance-enhancing drugs tests for the banned substance clomiphene. They will call it an omen. A bad one. They will suggest that if the rivalry was ever going to continue, it could only have been then, when, prior to the failed test, the sole issue was that Benn was a welterweight and Eubank Jnr a middleweight. 

Then there will be some who will say it has arrived not decades or years but just days too late. These people, troublemakers, will tell you that the ideal time for Benn and Eubank Jnr to fight was last weekend – Easter weekend – and that them not doing so represents another missed opportunity. Ask them why and they will delight in explaining to you that there was no better time for Benn to fight Eubank Jnr than Easter weekend because eggs have done much of the heavy lifting, promotionally, since the pair’s first date – October 8, 2022 – was scrapped. (Eggs, of course, were one of the things blamed for Benn’s adverse findings that year.) 

For Benn, a fight on Easter weekend would have offered him the chance to view the easter egg the Christian way; that is, as a symbol of new life and rebirth. He might even have mentioned this on his Instagram account – white text on a black background, perhaps with a roaring lion – during the next break from his self-imposed social media ban. “Resurrection Sunday,” he might have written. “Locked in.”

As it happens, Benn-Eubank III takes place six days after Easter. This means that Conor Benn will receive a reduced amount of egg jokes and that the rest of us will need to be more creative with our headlines and reports. It also means that it takes place at a time when many are regretting their overconsumption of chocolate eggs and now doing all they can to either forget they ate them or, having been shamed by those around them, trying to work off the damage. Maybe, in that respect, April 26 was the perfect date all along. 

Still, one thing is certain: the selling strategy has now changed. Whereas before Benn-Eubank III was being sold on the drug that is nostalgia, now it has a different drug powering the promotion. Now it has clomiphene, a word less familiar. Now nostalgia, the gateway drug, no longer has much of an effect, our collective tolerance to it having increased. In fact, Chris Eubank Snr, one half of the rivalry, has refused to even deal – confirmation, if ever it was needed, that this fight on Saturday has outgrown the original reason for its existence. 

It is, you see, not about the dads anymore. That was just the bait for middle-aged men who wanted to feel young again and relive the nineties. It worked as a starting point, sure, but it ultimately rang hollow once Chris Eubank chose to keep his distance and Conor Benn introduced the word clomiphene to the Benn-Eubank glossary. After that, the pitch was very different. Now, with clomiphene the drug, we found that the levels of hate went up, as did the levels of controversy, and suddenly those involved with the event had a drug even more potent than nostalgia at their disposal. Now, rather than just aiming the fight at Oasis fans who once watched the dads, they had a whole new generation invested in the fight, the sons, and the rivalry. 

All they had to do was simplify the story – meaning dumb it down – for the uneducated masses. They needed either a street name for the new drug keeping business alive or, failing that, an emoji, or just something associated with the drug capable of catching on. That’s where the egg came in. That, unlike clomiphene, was something familiar, tangible, and easy to picture. It also possessed great pun and meme potential, which is all that really matters when selling anything these days. It could even be used as a prop. 

Sure enough, soon they had cracked it. In a matter of days, we had an egg smashed across Conor Benn’s face, we had an “egg detector” at a press conference, and we had a video of Chris Eubank Jnr making an omelette. We knew then that the fight had grown wings and that the fathers, the ones who started it all, were only required to lend surnames and lay the groundwork. Indeed, the moment it became possible for the fight to be sold in a different way – in a sexier, more dangerous way – everybody involved started clucking and whisked it off in the direction most viral. 

Even Turki Alalshikh, the bird who built the nest, is making light of its construction. “I just arrived to London…” he tweeted on Monday. “I have a very big concern that the fight will not happen because of the drug test results of Eddie Hearn and Ben Shalom [its promoters].”

They can laugh about it now, of course. See the funny side. The sunny-side-up. But that is only because Benn-Eubank III has scrambled everybody’s minds, memories and ability to think. Two-and-a-half years on, it has now become a remake less interested in history and tradition and more interested in clicks, childish puns, and cheap sales tricks. It has become a rivalry where anything goes and money conquers all, and yet nothing about the fight has ever been earned. Instead, it was poached, inherited. Worse than that, it has, since 2022, been far too easy for them all. Easy to move on. Easy to forget. Over-easy.

In fact, with no hardboiled detectives on hand to get to the bottom of what occurred in 2022, we will on Saturday just eat what has been passed through a hatch and try to ignore the smell. We will tell ourselves that if you can’t beat them, you must join them, and retreat into our shells, where it is safe, and where, for some, it is still 1993. 

Those in the kitchen, meanwhile, will be reassured to know that the stench they have produced is rotten only to fans with the nose to detect it. The ones with a sense of smell. The ones with a sense of taste. For everybody else it is just a damn good source of protein, what is being served. For everybody else the only danger is consuming too much of it, getting caught, and having nobody but themselves to blame.

Elliot Worsell is a boxing writer whose byline first appeared in Boxing News magazine at the age of 17. He has, in the 20 years since, written for various publications, worked as press officer for two world heavyweight champions and won four first-place BWAA (Boxing Writers Association of America) awards. In addition to his boxing writing, Worsell has written about mixed martial arts for Fighters Only magazine and UFC.com, as well as worked as a publicist for the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). He has also written two non-fiction books, one of which, “Dog Rounds,” was shortlisted at the British Sports Book Awards in 2018.