Conor Benn failed two drug tests for the banned substance clomifene in 2022, torpedoing his grudge fight with Chris Eubank Jr. His claim that excessive egg consumption caused the positive test became one of British sport's most ridiculed excuses.
The bout, scheduled for 8 October 2022 at London's O2 Arena, was one of the most anticipated in recent British boxing history: a second-generation grudge match, 30 years after their fathers Nigel Benn and Chris Eubank fought two legendary wars. On fight week, the Daily Mail revealed that Benn had failed a Voluntary Anti-Doping Association test, with the sample showing traces of clomifene, a fertility drug banned at all times because it boosts testosterone production.
The British Boxing Board of Control prohibited Benn from participating, and though his promoters at Matchroom initially insisted the fight would go ahead, it was postponed and then cancelled. It subsequently emerged that Benn had failed not one but two VADA tests, in July and September 2022. Benn maintained his innocence, saying he had voluntarily enrolled in VADA testing in February 2022 and that it made no sense for him to dope afterwards.
What followed was a legal odyssey. Benn voluntarily relinquished his British boxing licence in October 2022 rather than contest the case before the Board. He found a friendlier forum at the World Boxing Council, which in February 2023 ruled that his positive test had been caused by the 'highly elevated consumption of eggs' in his diet, restoring him to its rankings. The egg defence was greeted with widespread derision.
In November 2024, the UK's independent National Anti-Doping Panel lifted his provisional suspension, ruling it was 'not comfortably satisfied' that UK Anti-Doping had proved an anti-doping rule violation. But UKAD and the Boxing Board won an appeal in May 2024 that reimposed the suspension, prolonging a saga that kept Benn out of British rings for years while he fought twice abroad.
Eventually cleared to resume his career, Benn finally got his date with Eubank Jr in 2025, losing the first meeting before gaining revenge in a rematch. He has since moved on to world-title contention, including a Las Vegas showdown with Ryan Garcia, himself no stranger to doping controversy.
The affair left British boxing with uncomfortable questions about the patchwork of overlapping anti-doping jurisdictions, the power of promoters to keep lucrative fights alive, and whether a wealthy fighter can forum-shop his way out of trouble in a way an ordinary athlete never could.