{"id":278537,"date":"2025-11-11T22:14:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T22:14:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/278537\/"},"modified":"2025-11-11T22:14:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T22:14:07","slug":"the-eubanks-like-father-like-son-review-a-family-boxing-tale-so-unexpectedly-moving-itll-leave-you-in-tears-television-radio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/278537\/","title":{"rendered":"The Eubanks: Like Father, Like Son review \u2013 a family boxing tale so unexpectedly moving it\u2019ll leave you in tears | Television & radio"},"content":{"rendered":"

You do not, I would hazard, expect to be moved to tears by a documentary about the Eubank family. But I suspect I am not the only one to find myself unexpectedly moved by The Eubanks: Like Father, Like Son, which follows Chris Sr and Chris Jr (also a successful boxer) as the latter prepares for a fight against Conor Benn<\/a>, son of his father\u2019s great 90s rival Nigel Benn, and tracing the rapprochement between the Eubanks after four years of estrangement.<\/p>\n

Eubank Jr has all his father\u2019s gentleness and none of his eccentricity. He also has less of his need to be noticed, and the patience of a saint. He treats his father with such quiet respect \u2013 absorbing all his performative flourishes, and clearly trying to keep his mind\u2019s eye and his heart fixed on Eubank Sr\u2019s underlying love \u2013 that your own heart is semi-pulverised long before we get to the meat of the programme.<\/p>\n

The men\u2019s estrangement began when Eubank Jr sacked his father as his coach. It was a wholly understandable decision \u2013 at least if you weren\u2019t Eubank Sr. The son felt he had gone as far as he could in the sport under his father\u2019s guidance and he needed people with new advice, new strategies, new ways to take him to the next level. He also felt that he needed to separate himself as a person as well as a boxer from the man who had, one way or another, dominated him until then.<\/p>\n

We see footage of Eubank Sr as his coach talking \u2013 performing, really \u2013 at various press conferences. \u201cI hear people say I am stealing my son\u2019s limelight. So someone else should be in my position? Who is more qualified than I?\u201d Any teenager who ever complains that a parent is embarrassing them should watch it and never speak again.<\/p>\n

Asked about his son\u2019s decision now, Eubank replies that he was \u201cdeeply, deeply, deeply hurt \u2026 Yes, it\u2019s control. There\u2019s nothing wrong with that. \u2018Let him have his own career.\u2019 That is such nonsense!\u201d We are so used to the showboating celebrity that this sudden unvarnished honesty is quite disarming. More follows. At first, it is more evidence of the disciplinarian his son remembers at home: \u201cI brought him up with the cane, I brought him up with the belt \u2026 I was fierce as a father.\u201d As a coach: \u201cHe was under my spell. And my spell was sweet and loving.\u201d But it gives way to something deeper as the pair recall Dad\u2019s resistance first to his child getting involved with boxing (\u201cI did not want him to suffer. I was fearful it was going to get him damaged\u201d) and to the grudge match with Conor Benn. \u201cHe is my son and they are going to take him away from me because he will not listen,\u201d says Eubank Sr, his voice shaking with the very specific anger that comes from parental terror.<\/p>\n

Eubank\u2019s older son, Sebastian, died of a heart attack four years ago at the age of 29. \u201cI think it consumed my father,\u201d says Eubank Jr.<\/p>\n

\u201cSebastian, six years before he passed,\u201d says Eubank Sr, \u201csaid to me: \u2018You\u2019re too extreme.\u2019 I am extreme, because I love my children.\u201d And it is this, we can see, that is behind his public disapproval of Eubank Jr in the days leading up to the Conor fight (\u201cYou\u2019re a disgrace \u2026 The money will get you killed\u201d), unhelpful though it is to his son as he prepares.<\/p>\n

On the day, however, and in a notably undramatic way, he turns up to support his son in the fight. Afterwards, you can see the pride outweighed only by relief that \u2013 although needing hospital treatment for the severe dehydration his father warned about \u2013 the boy has survived. It\u2019s clear Eubank Sr hopes that this will be his son\u2019s last fight and that his unprecedentedly unstinting praise (\u201cEverywhere you go now \u2013 YOU\u2019RE the superstar!\u201d) is partly in the hope of making it so. \u201cI\u2019ve lost a son,\u201d he says to camera, every vestige of artifice gone. \u201cI will not lose another one. I will not lose another one.\u201d<\/p>\n

It really is enough to make you weep, as the camera unobtrusively captures these men so loved by each other trying to connect, to understand and make each other understand, watching them reach out and pass each other, missing only by inches. But still close enough to matter, close enough to keep trying. \u201cYou will always be my baby,\u201d says the father. \u201cI will always be your son,\u201d his child replies.<\/p>\n

The son, the child, the baby has a rematch with Benn on 15 November.<\/p>\n

The Eubanks: Like Father, Like Son aired on BBC Three and is on iPlayer now<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You do not, I would hazard, expect to be moved to tears by a documentary about the Eubank…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":278538,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-278537","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-boxing","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}