By Scott Gilfoid: After narrowly winning a bitterly contested 12 round split decision last Saturday night over Chris Eubank Jr (18-1, 13 KOs), EBU middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders (21-0, 11 KOs) expects Eubank Jr to shut-up and stop talking trash.

Saunders wants Eubank Jr to know his place and get in line due to him feeling the win was decisive enough to shut down all controversy. It’s unclear whether Eubank Jr will opt to follow Saunders wishes and keep quiet for not, but you certainly can’t blame Eubank Jr if he chooses to keep talking trash because he fought well enough to deserve the decision.

For Saunders, this was his second close and controversial decision in his last three fights. Two fights ago, Saunders won a narrow 12 round decision over John Ryder by the scores of 115-114, 115-113 and 115-113. The fact that Saunders is going life and death against guys who aren’t the cream of the crop suggests that he doesn’t have the talent to be a champion at 160 unless you’re talking about a future paper champion.

Before his fight against Eubank Jr, Saunders had been talking about retiring if he lost the fight. He won, but he fought poorly enough to lose and he’s going to need to re-think making retirement threats in the future.

Saunders simply doesn’t have the talent to assume that he’ll be able to beat the likes of Eubank Jr in a rematch. Right now, I’d have to favor Eubank Jr when/if the two fighters face each other in the future.

“All grudge matches are big fights,” said Saunders via Skysports.com. “Whoever loses, they have to shut up. After all the talking up, he’s lost so he has to shut his mouth, get to the back of the queue now and fight whoever he wants. That’s done.”

I don’t agree that Eubank Jr has to shut up just because he lost the fight. I saw it as a case of the judges giving Saunders the victory based on him winning most of the first five rounds. I had Eubank Jr winning the last seven rounds with ease due to his superior work rate and aggression.

“I’ve got big things ahead of me. He’s at the back now, he’s forgotten about,” Saunders said. “Fighters like him shouldn’t be beating me.”

The fact that Eubank Jr was able to dominate Saunders in the 2nd half of the fight suggests that Saunders doesn’t have the talent to decisively beat the decent middleweight contenders in the division.