By Scott Gilfoid: After winning a close and controversial 12 round split decision last Saturday night over Chris Eubank Jr (18-1, 13 KOs), Billy Joe Saunders (21-0, 11 KOs) says he would be interested in a rematch in the near future.
Saunders will first be looking to face the winner of the December 13th fight between Andy Lee and Matt Korobov for the WBO middleweight strap. If things go well for Saunders, he would then possibly face Eubank Jr in a rematch.
I think things won’t go well for Saunders against the winner of the Korobov-Lee fight, because the blueprint was pretty much created last night by Eubank Jr. He showed clearly that if you put a lot of pressure on Saunders, he then wears down and folds.
Eubank Jr’s problem was he waited until the 6th round before he started pressuring Saunders, and this enabled Saunders to win a close decision based on his better work rate in the first five rounds. I still had Eubank Jr winning the fight, but there was little chance that he was going to get a decision over Saunders given his late start in the fight.
The judges scored the fight 15-114 for Eubank Jr, and 116-113 and 115-113 for Saunders.
“I wouldn’t say no to a rematch,” Saunders said via the Dailymail.co.uk. “He said it was a fair decision and the better man won. There were no arguments or disappointments from me. It was close, he pushed me but I felt I won the fight.”
I see Eubank Jr beating Saunders in the rematch as long as he starts pressuring him from the 1st round of the fight instead of waiting. Eubank Jr is the superior fighter with the better skills and better engine by far. He just needs a good trainer that has the intelligence to give him the right instructions at the right time.
There was no reason for Eubank Jr to have waited as long as he did last night before pushing the fight to Saunders. Had Eubank Jr been trained by someone like Freddie Roach last night, I believe he would have won the fight because there’s no way Roach would have let him wait five rounds before taking the fight to Saunders.
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