By Scott Gilfoid: In what has to be construed as an odd backwards move for his career, once beaten #2 WBA middleweight contender Chris Eubank Jr. (21-1, 16 KOs) will be slamming his career into reverse gear when he faces British middleweight champion Nick Blackwell (19-3-1, 8 KOs) on March 5 in Kent.
It’s a very strange move by the 26-year-old Eubank Jr. because he recently became the WBA mandatory challenger to WBA “regular” 160lb champion Daniel Jacobs last December when he beat Gary “Spike” O’Sullivan by a 7th round stoppage. The logical move for Eubank Jr. from there would be either to challenge Jacobs for his WBA title or at least take on one of the top contenders in the division. The fact that Eubank Jr. is choosing to face Blackwell instead of Jacobs is a very curious one. Eubank Jr. wasted his time in becoming the WBA mandatory because he’s not taking advantage of it right now.
Instead, Eubank Jr. has slipped his career into full reverse and is gunning it going backwards to face a guy that he should have been fighting years ago instead of now. All I can think of when I see a fight like this is maybe Eubank Jr. has confidence issues or a problem with his ambition. I don’t know what else to think about when I see a guy taking his career backwards in the manner that Eubank Jr. is.
“He [Eubank Jr] knows it’s going to be a tough fight. It’s a tough fight for little reward. for him. I’m confident I’m going to win,” Blackwell said to BBC.com. “On paper, I’m the underdog but I know I’ve got everything needed to beat him. I just know I’m going to win this fight. The fight has meant to happen three or four times but it hasn’t materialized.”
What we don’t know is what Eubank Jr. will do if he wins the British middleweight title. Will Eubank Jr start defending it against the domestic fodder and proudly be the British champion for the next two or three years, or will vacate the strap and get serious with his career by going after titles that actually mean something and that would bring him a lot of money?
This is kind of a disappointing decision by Eubank Jr. to be facing such a lower level guy like Blackwell. To be sure, Blackwell is ranked at the bottom of the World Boxing Council’s rankings at No.15 WBC, but he’s still not someone that Eubank Jr. should be fighting if he’s serious about wanting to capture a world title someday. When you see Eubank Jr. talking about wanting to fight Gennady Golovkin, and then seeing him fight Blackwell, it just makes you shake your head and wonder what’s going on with Eubank Jr.
Blackwell has been beaten by Billy Joe Saunders, Max Bursak, and Martin Murray. In 2014, Blackwell fought to a controversial 6 round draw against Sergey Khomitsky. I saw that fight and had Khomitsky winning easily. I thought he was robbed.
Eubank Jr. says he would be interested in fighting Amir Khan if he beats WBC middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez in their fight on May 7.
“That would be a very interesting fight to think about in the next year or two,” Eubank Jr. said to Fighthype about a fight against Khan. “You’d have to see how he performs at that weight against Canelo. It’s very brave of him to step up to that weight and fight someone of that caliber for the first time at that weight.”
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