LONDON — It was late November in 2014 and, not for the first time, Chris Eubank Jr. was at a press conference completely alone.

He was 25 years old and only a few days away from the 19th outing of his professional career, an anticipated grudge match with Billy Joe Saunders.

It had raised eyebrows when the man from Brighton, wearing a t-shirt that read ‘Born to Win’, bowled into the room at the Grosvenor Hotel in London without a single member of his team, barely said a word to anyone and simply took his seat at the top table.

Saunders, whose raison d’etre that day was to wind his opponent up, suggested that Eubank’s famous father was waiting outside for him in the car. He wasn’t.

It was becoming increasingly apparent to the British boxing public that Eubank the son was an outlier. His emergence was of course underpinned by his famous surname but from the outset he was happy to do things differently and cared little about what anyone said.

One particular quirk of his camps in the early days is that Eubank insisted he did not need a traditional trainer to guide him to victory. “I do what I want,” he said that day. “Nobody tells me what to do in a fight, I have my own plans.”

Saunders’ coach, the vastly experienced Jimmy Tibbs, fired back: “If you don’t need a trainer, you must be one in a million”. Without missing a beat, Eubank replied: “That’s right. That’s exactly what I am; one in a million.”

In the 11 years that have followed, throughout a unique career which is yet to glean a world title, Eubank has proved himself to be exactly that. To this day, he remains a one-off and it is unlikely the sport in this country will house anyone quite like him again.

But the renegade kid who rocked up to press conferences alone is gone and replaced by one of the 'elder statesmen' of British boxing. He wears designer clothes and exclusively drives supercars these days and it was suggested by Eddie Hearn that Saturday night’s rematch with Conor Benn at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium could well be the final fight of his career.

Whether or not that is the case, Benn, seven years his junior, knows it is almost certainly his second and final chance to claim a win for his family against a man called Eubank, a name at the forefront of British boxing for the best part of 40 years now.

“I’ve been here a long time,” Eubank tells The Ring. “It’s scary to think.

“I used to be that kid but now I’m 38 fights in and I’ve noticed the transition. I can’t even remember the 38 people that I fought over 14 years of being a professional. I’m telling you It’s scary, man.

“Where does the time go? But when I’m thinking about this, I’m just so appreciative and happy that I am still able to be here performing, still able to fight, still able to get through these training camps, still able to take the shots.

“There are plenty of other fighters who lose all of that with age. They lost that hunger and they lose that physical ability. But I haven’t lost that so I thank God for that, I appreciate it and I respect that.”

Their bruising first encounter at Spurs in April looked like the sort of fight that would age anyone and now, seven months on, the pair are ready to go again. Both have insisted they are better prepared this time around given the knowledge gained from those 12 absorbing rounds on the Seven Sisters Road.

Benn, boxing at middleweight for the second time in his career, says he will drop back down to his natural state at welterweight but the future is unclear for Eubank. A fight with Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez has always been on the radar while the emergence of Hamzah Sheeraz has provided him with another lucrative option.

The truth is that even a second successive victory over Benn, who he beat on points first time around, will not open the doors to many more potential fights despite his position as one of British boxing’s most recognisable figures. So how long will he go on for? “I’m going to keep going for as long as I can,” he says.

It is put to Eubank that many in his position may have chosen to walk away after his first victory over Benn. Given the emotional and physical strain of the build-up, the weight cut and the fight itself, there were suggestions that victory in such a grudge match would have provided the perfect high note on which to bow out. Eubank disagrees.

“Look, I don’t need this fight,” he says. “I’ve drawn a line under this rivalry by winning so I don’t need to beat him again.

“But now it’s about the fans. People want to see this fight again and the fact that Conor Benn can sit there talking like he should have won and he got robbed in the first fight. That he did this and that, he hurt me, he wobbled me like he should have won the fight.

“I need to stop this kid so that he fully understands you are not on my level. I do not want this fight to go 12 rounds.”

A few days after that press conference in 2014, Eubank was beaten on points by Saunders, also 25 at the time, at London’s Excel Arena. It was the first of the three defeats in Eubank’s career to date.

But while it is now four and a half years since Saunders last boxed, Eubank’s one-man show displays no signs of slowing down.

One in a million? He's not far off.