By Scott Gilfoid: #2 WBA, #2 WBC Chris Eubank Jr. (23-1, 18 KOs) says he’ll be signing for a fight against IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (35-0, 32 KOs) this Monday. They only have 48 hours to get the deal done, according to his promoter Eddie Hearn.
It looks like Golovkin and his promoter Tom Loeffler are going to move on if the fight isn’t signed by the deadline. They’ve got to get back into the ring quickly because they wasted a great deal of time waiting for Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and his promoters at Golden Boy for a fight. They found out recently that Canelo won’t fight him for a year and a half until the fall of 2017.
Eubank Jr. says he’ll definitely beat Golovkin and take everything he has. We’ll see. Many people believe that the fight won’t get made at all, period. They think Eubank Jr. won’t take the fight when push comes to shove and he has to sign the contract for the fight, which is why it’s smart that there’s a short 48-hour deadline for the fight. If Golovkin and Loeffler were to leave the negotiations open for a long period, they could find themselves in the same situation as they were with the Canelo fight. In other words, they could wind up with nothing.
When asked what the deadline is to get the Golovkin-Eubank Jr. fight made, Hearn said, “48 hours. The bottom line is the fight is there if you want it. You can have it. He’s ready to sign. We just need to make sure the deal and the terms are right for Junior. But listen, there’s no one queuing up to fight Gennady Golovkin. [He] embarrassed Canelo. They forged a story to say they agreed to a deal for next fall in 2017. That’s a year and a half. Canelo would love to fight at middleweight. He’s killing himself to make 154 pounds just to fight Liam Smith, which has bombed in America. So Canelo has lost face. Billy Joe had the fight. He wouldn’t take it. There seems to be only one world class fighter with a big name that is prepared to face him and that’s Chris Eubank Jr,” said Hearn.
“Everything now has to be on point. You can’t go into a fight like that [Golovkin] unless you’re 100 percent,” said Eubank Jr. at the post-fight press conference last Saturday night. “For this fight [Doran], I was 50%. For Golovkin, I’ll be 100 percent. [I’ll use] more showboating. The way to beat someone like Goiovkin is to do things unconventional. What am I going to do everything the same as the other guys he’s been in with? You’ve got to do something different. I’ve got a nice bag of tricks up my sleeve. I would like to get the best sparring in the world to try and replicate his style. Sparring will be a key factor. I didn’t get any sparring for this fight here. I just did bag work and general fitness. We’ll definitely be looking for strong super middleweights. That would definitely be a great option. Power, that’s what he relies on, his power. I know I can take his shots, which is why I’m not worried about stepping into the ring with this man. The fight has the potential to be the biggest fight in British boxing history, I believe. The reputation he has, to take that scalp in England, that’s history. He’s not diminishing, as far as him getting older. He’s carrying his power. In his last fight, he was letting the guy hit him, which is interesting. I hope he does the same for me. I’m coming for his belts. This is a dream of mine to become a world champion to be able share the ring with the so-called pound-for-pound makes it even more special. He’s not indestructible. He’s not a boogeyman, whatever you guys want to call him. He has two legs, two arms and a heartbeat just like me. I can and I will beat him. He’s undefeated and has the highest knockout ratio in boxing. You can’t knock that; he’s paid his dues. He’s there for the taking, and Chris Eubank Jr. will take him. He’s solely relying on his power and his intimidation factor. These guys he fights; they’ve already lost before they get inside the ring with him. I have so much self-belief. I’m not going in there to survive. I’m not going in there thinking I’m going to get hurt. I’m going in there to take everything he has. I’m not scared of him. Speed, is he faster than me? Does he throw combinations quicker than me? We know about his power. How accurate is he going to be against a guy with my kind of defense? He’s not fast, and I know how to evade extremely well. That’s a huge part. My training to slip punches. He was letting a guy punch him in the face in his last fight. The guy didn’t have any power, but free shots, that’s unprofessional to me,” said Eubank Jr.
At this point, Chris Eubank Sr. chimed in, saying, “That’s deplorable.”
“There are so many holes, so many weaknesses I see in his game,” said Eubank Jr. about Golovkin.
This is going to go really badly for Eubank Jr. if he does take the fight with Golovkin. It seems painfully obviously that he doesn’t realize how over-matched he is. Eubank Jr. is like someone steering a car over the cliff, and no one is saving him from the disaster of the GGG fight. I would like to think that Hearn has given Eubank Jr. the straight talk of what’s going to happen in that fight, but I doubt that he has. I don’t think Hearn wants to get on Eubank Jr’s bad side by telling him that he’s going to get demolished by Golovkin. At the very least, it would be nice for him to tell Eubank Jr. that his chances of beating Triple G are virtually zero.
“I’m looking at Golovkin and I’m looking at Junior, and I think the math works in Junior’s favor,” said Eubank Sr. “He is a minimum of three to one. Prove to me, Mr. Golovkin, that you can beat Junior, because I don’t believe it. Eddie has done his job. We are ready to sign. Sky needs to make sure the deal works for Britain’s fighter, Britain’s British champion. We want to sign. For all fans, petition Sky to make the deal happen. We will sign on Monday,” said Eubank Sr.