By Scott Gilfoid: #14 WBC Chris Eubank Jr (18-1, 13 KOs) will be getting a shot at the title of WBA World interim middleweight champion Dmitry Chudinov (14-0-2, 9 KOs) on the undercard of the Tyson Fury vs. Christian Hammer fight card on February 28th at the O2 Arena in London, UK.
What’s interesting about this fight is the fact that Eubank Jr is coming off of a 12 round split decision loss to Billy Joe Saunders in his last fight in November. Normally you don’t see a lot of fighters getting title shots when they’re coming off of a defeat like Eubank Jr.
I realize that the Saunders-Eubank Jr was a close fight that could have gone either way, but the fact of the matter is Eubank Jr lost that fight. Now he’s getting title shot, albeit against the WBA interim 160lb champion Chudinov.
Eubank Jr will be risking his rematch with Saunders.
If Eubank Jr loses to the 28-year-old Chudinov, then it’s difficult to imagine that we’d be seeing an immediate rematch between Eubank Jr and Saunders. That wouldn’t be feasible, but then again it’s hard to believe that Eubank Jr is getting a title shot after a loss to Saunders.
That strikes me as very odd, and I’m surprised the World Boxing Association is sanctioning this fight. It’s not just that Eubank Jr is coming off of a loss. He’s also ranked very low at #14 by the WBC. The WBA doesn’t have him ranked in their top 15, so this begs the question why is Eubank Jr getting a title shot ahead of the top 15 contenders that the WBA has ranked?
If Eubank Jr beats Chudinov and Saunders defeats WBO middleweight champion Andy Lee in their fight, then this sets up a fight between Eubank Jr and Saunders where both guys have titles. The casual fans will likely see this as validation that the two fighters are top level. It would be nice to see how Eubank Jr and Saunders did against the guy that is recognized by many boxing fans to be the best fighter in the middleweight division in WBA Super World middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin. That would be a true test for both of them.
Chudinov picked up the interim WBA 160 pound title by beating little known Juan Camilo Novoa by a 6th round knockout last year in December. Since then, Chudinov has defended his title twice, beating Patrick Nielsen and Mehdi Bouadla.
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