By Dan Ambrose: Chris Eubank Jr. (22-1, 17 KOs) has seen enough of IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin’s past fights to see a number of flaws in his game that he believes he CAN and WILL exploit in September if they face each other. Eubank Jr. sees nothing special about Golovkin, and he plans on proving that to the boxing world.
Eubank Jr. doesn’t think Golovkin can match his hand speed, work rate, high intensity style of fighting, and his youth. Like Floyd Mayweather Jr., Eubank Jr. sees nothing extraordinary about Golovkin. To be sure, Eubank Jr. respects Golovkin and rates him as a very good fighter, but not so good that he can’t beat him to claim the No.1 spot as the best middleweight in the division.
Eubank Jr., 26, has a fight he needs to get out of the way this Saturday night against unbeaten Tom Doran (17-0, 7 KOs) before he can look to negotiate a match against Triple G in September. Eubank Jr. will be fighting the 28-year-old Doran on the undercard of the Anthony Joshua vs. Dominic Breazeale card at the O2 Arena in London, England. Eubank Jr’s fight against Doran will be on the pay-per-view televised portion of the Joshua-Breazeale card on Sky Box Office. Also on the card is super middleweights George Groves and Martin Murray fighting in the co-feature bout.
One huge obstacle to their fight happening was removed earlier today with the news from Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler that superstar Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (47-1-1, 33 KOs) won’t be facing Golovkin until September 2017. Canelo’s promoters at Golden Boy feel he needs more time to get acclimated to fighting at the full weight for the middleweight division. They also want more time for the Canelo-Golovkin to marinate, and feel that another year will help achieve that. This will be the second year that the fight has been marinating unfortunately. Golovkin now has the remainder of 2016 open as far as opponents go. Fighting Eubank Jr. is a good option because it should at least attract a lot of attention in the UK, if not in the U.S.
“My ambition is to become a world champion. Tom Doran isn’t a world champion,” said Eubank Jr. at Wednesday’s press conference. “Gennady Golovkin is [a world champion], and that’s my goal to fight the best and beat the best. As far as Tom, we’re not looking past him. To be honest, I’m not comfortable with his demeanor; this mild mannered. I’m not used to it. He showed heart in his last fight. He got knocked down and came back to win,” said Eubank Jr.
Doran won’t be much of an opponent for Eubank Jr., because he’s probably a step down from his last opponent Nick Blackwell. Eubank Jr. defeated Blackwell last March in stopping him in 10 rounds and ending his career after he suffered a blood clot on the brain. Eubank Jr. won the British middleweight title with that win. He could have vacated the title and focused on fighting a world ranked contender, but instead he opted to fight Doran and defend the British title. Eubank Jr. has taken a lot of heat about this because it’s a bad mismatch on paper, and it’s a fight that almost surely will end with a knockout win for Eubank Jr. It’ll be surprising if Doran makes it to the 6th round. If he does, then he’ll very likely be taking tremendous punishment.
Speaking about Golovkin,” Eubank Jr. said, “He’s the No.1 pound-for-pound king. I look at him and I say, ‘Why is he? What can he do that I can’t do?’ He has power, but as far as speed, technique, and defense, I see holes in his game. That’s what I’ll be looking to exploit,” said Eubank Jr.
Eubank Jr. seems to be purposefully diminishing Golovkin’s talent. It’s either a bluff on Eubank Jr’s part or he simply is very naive and doesn’t realize how over his head he is against Golovkin. I’d like to think Eubank Jr. is bluffing because he’s got to suspect that he’ll be way over his head when he gets inside the ring with Golovkin in September.
“I learned so much in that fight, even though I don’t believe I lost,” said Eubank Jr. about his fight against Billy Joe Saunders. “He was an experience fight. The mistake I made early in that fight, I have never repeated and I never will repeat, as far as me pacing myself too much in the early rounds of the fight. Now I go in there and I search and destroy from round one. You guys are going to see that on Saturday night. The prediction for Saturday night is going to be devastating. It’s going to be fireworks when I go in there and steal the show. I hope Tom’s ready. I’ve been told you’re going to stand toe-to-toe with me. If that’s true, then it’s going to be a hell of a fight,” said Eubank Jr.