There were no eggs or slaps or riots on Thursday night. No real questions, either, and that was something of a farce for a press conference. 

Something of a shame, too, if we are to attach credibility to a fight that warrants one or two.

But here we are, creeping ever closer to Conor Benn’s engagement with Chris Eubank Jnr at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium this weekend. As if that magnificent cathedral hasn’t suffered enough lately.

When the circus pitches up on Saturday, the narratives will spill out in all directions. On the sporting front, there is reason to be genuinely intrigued by two sons who have resurrected the era-defining rivalry of their fathers. There is also just cause to wonder if a step in two weight divisions will be too much for Benn and if the drain to 160lb will nullify Eubank’s natural advantages in size.

In other contexts, those are fascinating debates. But is that even the half of it? And is it possible to forget what went on in October 2022, the last time we got this close to seeing the names of Eubank and Benn in the same ring?

It was Mail Sport who broke the news three days out from fight night in 2022 that Benn had failed a drugs test for clomifene in July and September of that year. The time since has seen Benn eke out a victory in the convoluted, complex realms of anti-doping legislation, but still he has been unable to outrun the stink of his positive tests.

On more than one occasion here, Eubank Jnr labelled him a ‘drugs cheat’. In turn that followed his antics at a previous gathering in February, when he slapped Benn in the face with an egg in mockery of an explanation previously offered for how clomifene entered his system.

Such has been the soap opera around an area of tremendous importance.

But to call Benn a cheat is to go directly against the verdict of an independent panel last November — they found in Benn’s favour. At the end of such a thorny journey, there was no ban, backdated or otherwise, and no establishment of guilt. And yet he fights tomorrow under a cloud nonetheless. A large one.

It remains the inevitable sub-plot of this showdown that we still must wonder how a female fertility drug, with performance- enhancing qualities, was able to get into Benn’s system.

It is Mail Sport’s understanding, based on conversations with sources close to the situation, that no science-based explanation was offered or even required at the hearings that cleared his return to fighting in this country.

Those processes, we have been told, hinged on a legal defence that successfully argued against the testing processes of the Voluntary Anti-Doping

Association, who collected Benn’s samples, and the jurisdictional rights of UK Anti-Doping, the ruling authority in this country and one which found itself in the position of marking another agency’s homework. 

When it went against UKAD, Benn achieved a level of vindication — he had maintained he was innocent all along. But elements of his sport have not been shy in expressing their discomfort with how it was all handled.

That would extend to Benn’s insistence in the ensuing PR battle that he was cleared of all wrongdoing — it is a phrase often parroted by many in his orbit, as well as some in the media.

In fact, the correct wording of the verdict was shared by UK Anti-Doping in a statement last November, when they dropped their charges. It read: ‘The panel concluded that it was “not comfortably satisfied” that UKAD had proved that Mr Benn had committed an Anti-Doping Rule Violation for the use of clomifene.’ Semantics to some but not all.

The misfortune here is that Benn has done very little to fill in the blanks thrown up by his case. His interviews have been controlled and access to him strictly monitored.

On Thursday, that extended to no interviews with the written media, which was perhaps a blessing in disguise — in February he threatened to physically throw a journalist out of their huddle.

His offence had been to ask whether Benn would fight with a British licence. Separate questions about whether Benn would give permission for UKAD to share their full findings were met with displeasure.

Those remain significant smells around this fight. As is the palpable sense that the saga has succeeded in making all parties richer. When the fight was originally scrapped, Benn and Eubank were due to pocket in the region of £3million each from a night at The O2. This time it has been upgraded to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and cheques of approximately £7m.

Reputational damage can arise in boxing as it does in any other sport when doping comes into the equation. But unlike others, in boxing it can be good for business to have a villain, which many might see as desperately depressing. Eddie Hearn’s boast that this meeting will be staged in front of a sell-out 65,000 crowd proves the interest is real.

As for the hard questions, Benn has largely swerved them, bobbing and weaving.

The worst he faced yesterday was from his opponent, who said: ‘Conor speaks about pressure and dealing with it. There is a reason he had his training camp in Spain... he had to flee. He couldn’t handle the pressure of walking the UK streets and have people shouting out drug cheat and making egg jokes.’

To other digs, Benn offered responses such as ‘shut up, Chris’ or ‘whatever’. From both directions it was puerile. To both fighters, we had questions to ask — Eubank Jnr’s affiliation with the convicted spot-fixer Mazhar Majeed remains of curiosity.

Alas, we were prevented from asking any of them, in service to a show that simply must go on. Only in boxing.