By Scott Gilfoid: Tom Loeffler of K2 Promotions is working on finalizing the deal between his fighter IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin and the Matchroom Sport promoted Chris Eubank Jr. for a fight that could take place in either late August or early September at the O2 Arena in London, England.
Golovkin, 34, will have all four of his 160lb titles on the line for the fight against #2 WBA, #2 WBC Eubank Jr.
The Golovkin-Eubank Jr. fight is supposed to be signed by the end of this week. If the deal isn’t made by that point, then Golovkin will go in a different direction in facing one of the other top contenders. He wants to fight twice more in 2016. He can’t do that if he wastes valuable time trying to get the fight negotiations hammered out with the 26-year-old Eubank Jr.
Eubank Jr. doesn’t bring a lot to the table in terms of credentials as a pro. He’s a former WBA interim middleweight champion and a current British middleweight belt holder. Other than those things, Eubank Jr’s claim to fame is he gave Billy Joe Saunders a lot of problems in losing to him by a 12 round decision in 2014. Eubank Jr. fought poorly in the first six rounds of that fight, and then came on strong in the second half of the bout to make it close.
“GGG is willing to go to the UK to defend his world titles, and it would be a huge event,” Loeffler said via Associated Press. “Hopefully we can get the fight signed.”
At this point, you can argue that Eubank Jr. is a better talker than he is a fighter. His confidence in his own ability appears to go far behind his actual talent level. Don’t get me wrong; Eubank Jr. is a good fighter, but he hasn’t shown more ability than some of the other fighters in the middleweight division like Saunders, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, Daniel Jacobs, Andy Lee, David Lemieux, Hassan N’Dam, Tureano Johnson and Peter Quillin.
Eubank Jr. reminds me a lot of David Lemieux with the way he was so incredibly confident going into his fight against Golovkin. By looking at the two fighters being interviewed before their fight, you would think that Lemieux was going to win easily, because his confidence was unshakable. It was pretty convincing go listen to how confident Lemieux was going into the Golovkin fight.
Eubank Jr. appears to be even more confident than Lemieux, and it just seems out of place for the kind of talent that he’s shown this far. Eubank Jr. reminds me of someone struggling in a math class to get a C grade and talking as if he’s an A-student. I haven’t been impressed with Eubank Jr’s performances during his career despite having won every fight except the Saunders match. Eubank Jr. looks flawed to me, and he still does too much posing after he throws punches. He can do that with the awful opposition he’s facing right now, but that will end when he gets inside the ring with GGG.
I’d rather see Eubank Jr. prove himself against a quality middleweight before facing Golovkin, because right now, he’s talked himself into the fight rather than having gotten through merit. The traditional way for a fighter to get an important match is to beat a lot of top talents to earn it. In Eubank Jr’s case, he’s done it by facing mediocre domestic level opposition since his loss to Saunders, and now he’s getting the fight handed to him on a silver platter.
When you see a fighter facing the kind of opposition that Eubank Jr. has been fighting before heading into the Golovkin fight, it tells you that fighter doesn’t deserve to share the same ring with the talented Kazakhstan fighter. I think this fight is going to be a duplicate of Golovkin’s match against the supremely confident David Lemieux. Eubank Jr. will go out early in the 1st round and get nailed a couple of times by GGG, and then spent the rest of the fight doing little until getting knocked out in the 6th or 7th round.
I see Golovkin knocking Eubank Jr. at any point that he wants in the fight. If Golovkin wants the fight to end in round one, then it’ll end in round one. It’s up to Golovkin. Eubank Jr. looks very, very flawed in my view. I think he needs to get with a good trainer like Freddie Roach so that he can fix all the many mistakes that Eubank Jr. makes in the ring. Roach needs to start with getting Eubank Jr. to stop posing after he throws punches, because that junk isn’t going to work against real world class opposition.