Well, they haven't lost their punch

Boxing legends are still trading verbal blows despite 'being pals now'

- MARC BAKER

T'hey were arch-enemies in the 1980s and 1990s when they swapped punches and vicious insults as they battled to be crowned the best on the planet.

But now, two pairs of rivals - Chris Eubank and Nigel Benn, and Frank Bruno and Lennox Lewis - have kissed and made up, sort of, to relive the days when they were world boxing champs.

For the fiery British foursome have reunited for an Amazon Prime documentary series Four Kings - to reveal the highs and lows of their golden era plus how they helped change the way the nation viewed Black athletes.

As we catch up with the legends ahead of Four Kings being released on Friday, it is clear they are still on fighting form when it comes to boxing bravado.

Benn, 60, is the first to take a swipe.

He says of Eubank: "I hate him. On a lot of things we don't see eye to eye." Eubank, 58, replies: "What I need to tell you is there is a king of kings... and I am he."

The quartet trade insults as they sit together at the series launch at Bafta's headquarters in London's West End.

Four Kings provides unprecedented access to the boxers and their families, chronicling the stars' careers as they navigated fame, fortune, jealousy and bitter rivalries as they battered each other for their place on the throne.

In the four-part series, Bruno, 62, talks about hating Lewis in the early-90s for calling him an Uncle Tom an insult suggesting he sold out his Caribbean roots to win approval of white people.

Bruno is still hurt, saying: "It was horrible. When someone starts going into the Uncle Tom business or whatever, it is a bit strong.

"That is why if he had cancer, I would feel sorry for the cancer because he was a horrible so and so."