By Scott Gilfoid: Chris Eubank Jr. doesn’t seem to be too happy about IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (35-0, 32 KOs) agreeing to fight Eubank Jr’s fellow countryman Kell Brook (36-0, 25 KOs) on September 10 at the O2 Arena in London, UK. Eubank Jr. claims that Golovkin won’t be respected by anyone in the UK or elsewhere.
Golovkin offered the fight to Eubank Jr. but he didn’t agree to the contract, according to his promoter Eddie Hearn, who says that the Eubanks wanted operational control of the fight. By not agreeing to fight Golovkin, Eubank Jr. misses out on the biggest payday of his career that could made him millions.
I doubt that Eubank Jr. will see that kind of money fighting Tom Doran or whoever else he digs up from the domestic level ranks for his next fight.
Golovkin posted this Tweet on Saturday:
”Up early, time to run. #Respect to @SpecialKBrook for taking this fight. Excited to show the #UK who I am.”
It seemed like a harmless enough Tweet, didn’t it? Golovkin was just basically saying that he’s getting up early to run, and that’s he’s anxious to show the British boxing fans who he is when he gets inside the ring with the 30-year-old Brook on September 10. I mean, Golovkin wants to become a star in the UK, as well as in the United States and elsewhere in the world. There’s nothing wrong with that.
Eubank Jr. then responded to Golovkin’s Tweet with one of his own saying the following on his Twitter:
“GGG Boxing, You’re so called P4P but fighting a guy 2 weight divisions below you!? Nobody in the UK or anywhere else is going to respect you. GGG Boxing after you’re done bullying Special K Brook and you’re ready for a fight with a real middleweight, I’ll be there #PickOnSomeoneYourOwnSize’
I honestly don’t know if it’s even worth it for Golovkin to waste his time with Eubank Jr. any future. I get the impression that Eubank Jr. is just name dropping Golovkin’s name to get attention from the fans in order to increase his popularity on the cheap. There’s the hard way of becoming popular and the easy way of becoming popular. The hard way involved fighting talented top fighters like Daniel Jacobs, Tureano Johnson, Curtis Stevens, Avtandil Khurtsidze and Curtis Stevens.
The easy way of becoming popular is the method that Eubank Jr. has used lately by fighting domestic level scrubs and then calling out Golovkin for a fight without signing the contract. I mean, Golovkin can certainly do whatever he wants to do with his career, but my recommendation is to put Eubank Jr. on permanent ignore and let him continue to steer his career into the rocky shoreline rather than moving it forward towards the path of success and riches by fighting the best.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fFtyLVo2o0
Heck, we don’t even know if Eubank Jr. has the talent to beat the top fighters because he’s already failed in the past when he fought a decent middleweight in Billy Joe Saunders. The only way you can judge a fighter is by what they’ve done in the past, and thus far, Eubank Jr. has proven to be lacking in the talent department to beat the good opposition. Saunders, a six-round fighter at best, is the only decent fighter that Eubank Jr. has fought and he lost to him. For all we know, Eubank Jr. may have already hit the zenith of his career with his recent wins over domestic level fighters Nick Blackwell and Tom Doran.
I don’t know why Eubank Jr. isn’t fighting the likes of Jacobs, Peter Quillin and Tureano Johnson, but I suspect that he or his promoters might not feel he’s up to the task. When you see a fighter that is fighting domestic level opposition and is calling out the No.1 fighter in the middleweight division in GGG, it sends a red flag that it’s a guy that is either name dropping or looking to cash out before he gets exposed by the actual contenders in the 160lb division.
It sure would be nice to see Eubank Jr. prove himself against one of the aforementioned Quillin, Johnson or Jacobs to earn the fight against Golovkin, but I don’t see that happening. I think if Eubank Jr. does fight Golovkin, it’ll be with him coming off a title defense of his British middleweight strap against some hopelessly over-matched poor sap of an opponent. I would hope that Golovkin and his promoter Tom Loeffer would shoo Eubank Jr. away, telling him to come back after he’s beaten Jacobs, Tureano Johnson and Quillin in consecutive fights.
“The problem was that Chris Eubank Sr. wanted operational control of the show,” said Hearn to Radio 5 Live. “He wanted to select his own ticket prices, his own undercard … talking about security and hotels. I don’t need that hassle — that’s what we do, that’s what we’ve done for 30 years.”
Former four-time world title challenger Martin Murray wasn’t surprised that Eubank Jr. didn’t agree to fight Golovkin recently. Murray says he never thought it would happen.
Here’s what Murray said on his social media site:
“I said all along that Golovkin v Eubank would not happen. He [Eubank Jr.] vacated the WBA interim so he didn’t have to fight Jacobs ffs #PublicityStunt.”
Yeah, I didn’t think Eubank Jr. would take the fight with Golovkin either. Coming events cast their shadows before. Eubank Jr. beat Gary “Spike” O’Sullivan in a WBA middleweight eliminator last December to become the #1 WBA mandatory challenger to WBA World 160lb champion Daniel Jacobs. So what did Eubank Jr. do with that opportunity? He turned around and decided to fight British middleweight champion Nick Blackwell for his domestic level strap last March. It was a move that you can only interpret one way; that Eubank Jr. wasn’t ready to take on a dangerous world class fighter like Jacobs.
Eubank Jr’s next move was even more telling about his mindset. Instead of tossing the British strap in the trash bin and getting serious with his career, he went and defended the British 160lb title against domestic level fighter Tom Doran. As soon as Eubank Jr. trounced the over-matched Doran, he started calling out Golovkin. It made no sense at all what Eubank Jr. was doing because he had jammed his career into reverse to become the British champ-ion, and then here he was calling out the best fighter in the middleweight division in Golovkin. It was weird move, and it’s so not surprising to me that Eubank Jr. opted not to agree to the terms of the agreement for the Golovkin fight.
After Golovkin decimates Kell Brook on September 10, I think Golovkin should look to fight someone like Jacobs for Decemnber. I hope Golovkin doesn’t give Eubank Jr. another chance to start with some more name dropping, because I think it’s going to end with the same result with the fight happening. Golovkin and his promoter Tom Loeffler need to focus on making fights with opponents that are truly ready to get inside the ring with him. They can’t spend one to two months wasting their time on trying to negotiate a fight with someone that won’t ultimately agree to take the fight.