Conor Benn is too small for 160 and too average for 154 — only 147 can secure him a title
Conor Benn finally got the win his family chased for generations, but did so on Saturday against a weight-drained Chris Eubank Jr., who boxed on spent legs from the opening bell.
In front of 65,000 fans in London, Benn closed the book on Britain’s most enduring blood feud. The Benns and the Eubanks had circled one another for 35 years, but it took a compromised Eubank for a Benn to finally get on the scoreboard. "This is the end of the Benn-Eubank saga,” Benn declared afterward. “It's over.”
Though the Eubank chapter is behind him, the page still turns and there are new questions to answer. Most pressing: Which weight class, at this point, does Benn actually belong in?
Benn was required to hit 160 pounds at Friday’s weigh-in and stay close to that number upon rehydrating Saturday. It was the same contractual obligation that sent Eubank to hospital after the first Benn bout seven months ago. But while Eubank out-fought Benn in April, he was second-best in near-enough every exchange for their do-over. And it all comes down to an old boxing truism: Weight matters.
It mattered for Eubank in this rivalry, and it will matter even more for Benn in the next stage of his career because he now has to move to a lower weight class than the one he spent all of 2025 settling into.
Benn, you see, was a mere visitor at middleweight because he’d be too small to defeat the elite there.
WBO and IBF champion Janibek Alimkhanuly would walk him down with southpaw spite, WBA champion Erislandy Lara would counter him senseless, and undisputed super middleweight champion Terence Crawford would have a far easier time with the Brit than he even had with Saul "Canelo" Alvarez.
At super welterweight, Benn’s prospects look just as grim because of how stacked that division is. He wouldn’t necessarily be undersized at 154 pounds like he would at middleweight, but he’d still be out-gunned and outclassed, regardless.
Vergil Ortiz Jr. recently combined come-forward pressure with a meticulous finishing power against Erickson Lubin in a style that would expose Benn’s limitations, and Jaron "Boots" Ennis is an in-house matchup that Matchroom would be foolish to risk two of its stars in just yet. That leaves WBC champion Sebastian Fundora who, at 6-foot-6 with an 80-inch reach advantage, would box like a lean version of Mortal Kombat’s Goro, against a Benn who is not big enough to bully him or slick enough to survive.
Benn, as a result, is left with welterweight as his only realistic option for success.
Welterweight was once regarded as a glamour division, but after Crawford’s all-time thrashing of Errol Spence Jr., the two headliners from that 2023 epic made their subsequent exits from 147 pounds to leave behind a number of B-grade fighters who are still looking to establish themselves in the aftermath.
It’s likely a key reason why we heard Benn call out the champions there on Saturday night, as he purposely avoided mentioning Janibek, "Boots" or Fundora.
It’s clear where the path of least resistance is.
"I fancy [Mario] Barrios for the WBC world title, Ryan Garcia, Rolly Romero, Devin Haney,” said Benn. “All of them Yanks can get it any day of the week, and twice on Sundays."
WBC champion Barrios is a beatable opponent for Benn as the U.S.-based boxer is winless since 2024, scoring only draws against Abel Ramos and Manny Pacquiao. It’s the clearest fight for Benn to try and win a world championship and legitimize himself internationally.
WBA titlist Romero, meanwhile, would provide a box-office promotion because he’s chaotic outside the ropes and vulnerable inside of them. An alternative option is Eimantis Stanionis who is teak-tough, but not untouchable — something Benn could do a lot of given 12 rounds with the Lithuanian.
Welterweight was the division in which Benn began to forge his name as an improved boxer — scoring a string of knockout wins over the likes of Chris Algieri and Chris van Heerden — before positive results for clomiphene in 2022 raised questions over his early performances. But Benn has fought beyond welterweight for years now and his body may have acclimated to higher weights. And so the same process that depleted Eubank to a shell of himself could now happen to Benn, if he isn’t careful.
Few things in Benn’s career ever seem simple and, again, he’s faced with a complex decision.
He can flirt with 160 pounds or dabble at 154, but the only weight that gives him a fighting chance at silverware is 147.
If he wants to be a world champion and not just a headline attraction, then the choice should already have been made. He has to go back to the division he once threatened to terrorize, and find out whether the fighter he used to be is still in there.
