By Gavin “Neds” O’Connor: Chris Eubank Sr is no shrinking violet. He is a man who openly court’s publicity and was always supremely confident in his own abilities in the ring as his fighting moniker “simply the best” illustrates.

The confidence would appear to run in the family with Chris Eubanks Junior (17-0, 12 KOs) winning his latest bout at the Phones 4U Arena in Manchester, UK last Saturday night against the very limited Ivan Jukic in stopping him in the 1st round.

In the post-fight interview the former world champion Eubanks Sr expressed the view that his son was ready to move to the next level. In fact, his belief in his son is at such a high level no-one in the current middleweight division is safe (now that’s confidence considering the talent on display last Saturday with Gennady Golovkin destroying Daniel Geale in 3 rounds in New York’s Madison Square Garden on the same weekend) and the 24 year old is ready for any challenge and it would only be a matter of time before the younger Eubanks would be crowned world champion.

Eubank Sr said “This man’s [Eubank Jr] going to be better than Floyd Mayweather Jr. He’s going to change the game.”

Eubank Jr’s list of his last 5 opponents would make a complete mockery of any suggestions to support such grand talk: Ivan Jukic, Stepan Horvath, Robert Swierzbinski, Sandor Micsko and Alistair warren. And that is the caliber of his most recent opponents after 17 professional outings there are more realistic opponent’s both at home, namely Billy Joe Saunders at middleweight or Callum Smith at super middleweight and abroad against the young unbeaten Hugo Centeno Jr. In the case of the latter, Eubanks Jr would be outclassed in my personal opinion.

Eubanks Jr should move to the next level, but he obviously isn’t ready for the top level yet. Eubanks Jr looks a good prospect but not a contender just yet so any talk of fighting world class opponents would appear to be only the words of a proud father and nothing more and to mention some of the names he has is naive. I wish Eubanks Jr nothing but good luck and fortune but one step at a time is needed for him.