Chris Eubank Jr could NOT have lost more weight, insists Tony Bellew – as he reacts to boxer tipping the scales over the limit ahead of Conor Benn showdown

Tony Bellew believes Chris Eubank Jr was incapable of losing any more weight after the boxer was hit with a £375,000 penalty for tipping the scales over 160-pound middleweight limit. 

Eubank Jr came in just half an ounce over mark during the weigh-in on Friday ahead of his long-awaited grudge match against Conor Benn. 

The 35-year-old is now at risk of losing more of his £7million purse if he weighs over 170 pounds on the morning of the fight.

The latter applies to the controversial 10-pound rehydration clause written into Eubank Jnr’s contract – a stipulation that has contributed to the falling out with his father, who famously twice fought Nigel Benn in the Nineties and felt the weight drain would put his son at serious risk.

Even before seeing images of a strikingly lean Eubank Jr, Bellew claimed that the margin of error and the fighter’s studious reputation suggested that further weight loss was simply not possible. 

‘I haven’t seen any pictures of him yet so I don’t know what he looks like,’ he exclusively told Mail Sport. ‘But what I would say is that when you miss weight by such a small margin like that and the repercussions are as heavy as they are, that tells you that he could not possibly get any more off. 

‘He’s a seriously dedicated young man, no one can ever take that away from him and he’s tried his very best so fair play to him. I’m not his biggest fan, he’s not mine, but I do admire what he goes through and the approach that he has.’

‘I just know how hard it would have been to get that off, he can’t, his body has gone into shutdown,’ added Bellew. ‘I had it at light heavyweight when I used to make 175lbs, it’s the hardest thing you will ever do. 

‘And once the body shuts down the only way to do it is drag it out. He could go on a treadmill for five miles and not lose a single ounce. He would have to go into a really hot bath full of salt – you have to draw it out of your body.’

Mail Sport understands the final weigh-in will be at 8am on Saturday ahead of the showdown at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

Benn, fighting in Britain for the first time since the resolution of a two-year legal battle against his positive drugs tests, reacted to the news by laughing on social media with the message: ‘Show me the mother******* money.’

Ordinarily a welterweight, Benn weighed in at 156 pounds and four ounces. He had taunted Eubank at their press conference on Thursday, labelling the former middleweight contender as ‘fat boy’. 

Having fought the final pounds by working out on a bike in a sweat suit on Friday, Eubank arrived with only minutes to spare at his weigh-in and initially registered two ounces over the limit. His second attempt came in half an ounce heavy.

The weight stipulations have contributed to anxieties around the fight, which was initially cancelled in 2022 over Benn’s failed tests for clomifene. Under the original agreement, Eubank Jnr, who has campaigned as high as super-middleweight, had agreed to meet at a catchweight of 157 pounds.

Eubank Snr has been its most outspoken critic, saying last week: ‘They’re putting a fight on that is against the law of boxing.

‘I told my son three years ago, that fight does not happen. He is the wrong weight. I told him why it shouldn’t happen and why it will not happen. I was correct last time and I will be correct this time.’

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