Chris Eubank Jr. vs. Avni Yildirim – Results

By Boxing News - 10/07/2017 - Comments

Image: Chris Eubank Jr. vs. Avni Yildirim - Results

By Jim Dower: IBO super middleweight champion Chris “Next Gen” Eubank Jr. (26-1, 20 KOs) used his hand speed advantage to stop the over-matched previously undefeated Avni “Mr. Robot” Yildirim (16-1, 10 KOs) in the 3rd round in the World Boxing Super Series (WBSS) tournament on Saturday night at the Hanns-Martin-Schleyer Arena in Stuttgart, Germany.

Eubank Jr. flattened with a flurry of heavy shots in round 3. The finishing punch for the 28-year-old Eubank Jr. was a left to the head. Referee Leszek Jankowiak immediately stopped the fight at 1:58 of the round rather than letting it continue. It looked like the referee kind of lost his senses by stopping it so quickly without giving Yildirim a chance to get up from the knockdown.

The Turkish fighter didn’t look that badly hurt, but the referee stopped the fight anyway when he went down. If the fight wasn’t stopped, Yildirim would have gotten up and continued fighting. He looked ready to continue, but the choice was taken out of his hands by the referee.

Yildirim was down earlier in the fight in round 1 from a big uppercut from Eubank Jr. Yildirim was asking for it by leaning forward while fighting. It made it easy for Eubank Jr. to catch him with an uppercut to put him down.

Yildirim fought well in the 2nd round in hitting Eubank Jr. with some good shots. Eubank Jr. still got the better of the action with his uppercuts and high-volume punching, but Yildirim showed that he was game and wiling to turn the fight into a war like he’d promised before the fight.

At the top of the 3rd round, Eubank Jr. came storming out, hitting Yildirim blistering shots to the head. It looked like Eubank Jr. had been given a pep talk in between rounds, and he came out looking to end the fight right away. Yildirim was slow, and unable to get Eubank Jr. off him the way that a better fighter would have done.

It wasn’t so much Yildirim’s lack of hand speed that was his undoing in round 3. It was more of a case of him not landing anything big enough to get Eubank Jr. to back off and give him the space that he needed. A big punching super middleweight like George Groves and Callum Smith would have kept Eubank Jr. honest. He couldn’t attack either of those guys in the same manner without worrying about walking into something big.

Eubank Jr. did a great job in his quarterfinals match in the World Boxing Super Series tournament. He looks very hard to beat. After watching how bad Yildirim looked tonight, it’s not surprising that Eubank Jr. and his father Chris Eubank Sr. wanted him so badly as an opponent. Yildirim was very similar to the last opponent Eubank Jr. fought in Arthur Abraham on July 15 this year.

Abraham went the full 12 round distance in losing a one-sided 12 round decision. Yildirim didn’t have the boxing ability, chin or the experience that Abraham had going for him. Eubank Jr. will have a tougher time beating the likes of Groves and Callum Smith. Those fighters aren’t nearly as vulnerable as Yildirim was tonight. If Eubank Jr. is for real, he’ll have to show it against those guys.