Chris Eubank Jr. wants to fight on Joshua-Molina card

By Boxing News - 11/14/2016 - Comments

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By Scott Gilfoid: Middleweight contender Chris Eubank Jr. wants to be added to the December 10 card headlined by IBF heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua vs. Erick Molina at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, England. The card will be televised by Sky Box Office pay-per-view. The 27-year-old Eubank Jr. (23-1, 18 KOs), who has been out with an injury since his 4th round knockout win over domestic level fighter Tom Doran last January, took to Twitter last Saturday to let the boxing fans know that he wants to be added to the Joshua-Molina card. Eubank Jr’s promoter Eddie Hearn says he’s going to meet with Eubank Jr. to discuss whether it’s possible for him to fight on the card.

Hearn asked Joshua if it’s possible for Eubank Jr. to fight on the card. Hearn figures that Eubank Jr. might want a lot of money to fight on the card, and he thinks he would want another soft opponent.

”So I’ve told Eddie Hearn & Anthony Joshua that I want to fight on the Dec 10 show in Manchester, let’s see what they come back to me with,” said Eubank Jr. on his Twitter.
It could come down to Joshua whether Eubank Jr. fights on the card. As it is, there are a lot of top names on the Joshua-Molina fight card. Here’s the card right now:

Anthony Joshua vs. Eric Molina

Khalid Yafai vs. Luis Conception

Dillian Whyte vs. Dereck Chisora

Hosea Burton vs. Frank Buglioni

Callum Smith vs. Luke Blackledge

Luis Ortiz vs. TBA

Scott Quigg vs. TBA

Katie Taylor vs. TBA

Marcus Morrison vs. TBA

Callum Johnson vs. TBA

Hearn’s response to the news of Eubank Jr. wanting on the Joshua vs. Molina card was less than enthusiastic sounding.

Here’s what Hearn said to IFL TV about Eubank Jr. fighting on December 10:

“It’s four weeks to go. He hasn’t punched for eight weeks with his injury,” said Hearn about Eubank Jr. “Everything with him is now, now, now. So let’s get on December 10th, on what? You want a load of money to have an easy fight, again. No! We’ll sit down next week if there’s a plan that leads to Gennady Golovkin – if they want to sign. To me, you don’t go on Twitter. What is he trying to do put the pressure on? You see the responses from the fans? I don’t think I saw one saying, ‘Yes, Eddie, get him on.’ There’s four weeks to go. What do you want, an eight rounder? I called AJ [Joshua] and said, ‘It’s your money, man. If you want to put Chris Eubank Jr. on, stick him on. You’ve got a big card. You’ve got Dereck Chisora against Dillian Whyte. You’ve got Scott Quigg. You’ve got Callum Smith. You’ve got Luis Ortiz. You’ve got Khald Yafai in a world title fight. You’ve got [Hosea] Burton-Buglioni,” said Hearn.

So there it is. It doesn’t sound like Hearn wants Eubank Jr. on the December 10 card unless he’s got a plan that leads to a fight against IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin. That means that Eubank Jr. might need to face a quality opponent for that to happen or take less money to fight on the card against a soft job.

With only four weeks to go before December 10, it’s difficult to imagine any of the top fighters in the middleweight division wanting to agree to a fight against Eubank Jr. It would be crazy for anyone good to agree to a fight of that nature with less than one month to go. Boxing fans would likely love to have Eubank Jr. on the card on December 10, but it’s not feasible unless Hearn throws a ton of money at one of the top contenders.

It doesn’t seem like Hearn would be open to doing that unless Joshua is on board. It could backfire on Hearn and Eubank Jr. if he’s put in with someone good on short notice, because he’s not good enough to be counted on to beat someone good in the division with any degree of certainty in my view. If Hearn gets someone like Curtis Stevens, Tureano Johnson, David Lemieux, Andy Lee, Peter Quillin, David Lemieux, Ryota Murata or Avtantil Khurtsidze to fight Eubank Jr., I think there would be a very good chance for Eubank Jr. to lose to one or all of them. If all Hearn is going to do is grab another domestic level fighter to toss into the ring for Eubank Jr. to fight, I don’t see it being worth having him on the card. Eubank Jr. has had too many mismatches as it is in his last five fights. It’s time that Eubank Jr. start fighting quality opposition again. Eubank Jr. was soundly beaten by Billy Joe Saunders in 2014 by a 12 round decision. Since that fight, Eubank Jr. has defeated the following easy opponents: Tom Doran, Nick Blackwell, Gary O’Sullivan, Tony Jeter and Dmitry Chudinov. There’s no quality there.

Eubank Jr. is currently ranked #2 WBC, #2 WBA, #5 IBF, and #9 WBO. He had the opportunity to fight Golovkin for a world title last September, but he failed to sign the contract for the fight. It would have given Eubank Jr. a career high payday if he’d taken it. Hearn turned around and offered the same deal to welterweight champion Kell Brook, who readily accepted it, and moved up from the 147lb division to face Golovkin last September. Brook lost the fight by a 5th round knockout, but he got a career high payday in the process and got some attention from the casual boxing fans.

Brook now believes that his status has been raised due to him sharing the same ring with Golovkin. We’ll soon find out if that’s the case, because if he has, he’ll get a big name to fight him. Eubank Jr. can put himself in the same position if he fights someone good on December 10, and then faces Golovkin in early 2017.

I’m not holding my breath in any of those things happening. If Eubank Jr. does fight on December 10, I suspect it’ll be against another soft job rather than the difficult contenders that I listed above. It’s going to be hard enough for Hearn to get anyone noteworthy to agree to fight Eubank Jr. on short notice. It’s almost a given that Eubank Jr. will wind up facing another soft job unfortunately. Like I said, Hearn can throw a lot of money at a top contender to get them to fight Eubank Jr. on December 10th. I don’t see Hearn doing that though.