By Scott Gilfoid: WBA interim middleweight champion Chris Eubank Jr. (19-1, 14 KOs) will be facing #13 WBA Tony Jeter (20-4-1, 14 KOs) in a scheduled mismatch tonight on Sky Sports 1 at the Sheffield Arena in Sheffield, UK. The fight was supposed to be the co-feature bout on the Diego Chaves vs. Kell Brook card, but it got pushed up to the main event after Brook suffered a rib injury during training. But even for an undercard fight, it’s just an awful fight.
Jeter was knocked out in two rounds by Patrick Nielson just last year. Nielson was recently easily beaten by Eubank Jr. victim Dmitry Chudinov. So you can see the Eubank Jr-Jeter fight is little more than a stay busy fight for Eubank Jr. against a guy that arguably shouldn’t even be ranked in the top 15.
I have Jeter as a bottom 100 contender. I don’t even see him as top 50. It’s just that the World Boxing Association has such Mickey Mouse ratings, and this what you get with Jeter slipping into their top 15. I don’t understand the fight though in terms of why it was made, and why it was put as the main event.
Eubank Jr. should be fighting better opposition at this point in his career, especially with the way he’s been yapping about wanting to fight Gennady Golovkin. When Golovkin was 26, he was so far ahead of Eubank Jr. in terms of development that it’s not even funny. But Golovkin also had big time punching power, which Eubank Jr. does not have and won’t have in two years from now.
The two-year thing is what Eubank Jr., his father Chris Eubank Sr. and Sky Sports writer Johnny Nelson all think is the right time for Eubank Jr. to face Golovkin. I guess the idea is that the now 33-year-old Golovkin will have lost something from his game by the time he turns 35 in two years. In other words, it looks like Eubank Jr. is going to try and wait him out until he gets old before going after him. If that’s the case, then I think Eubank Jr. is going to need to wait another 10 years, because I still Golovkin being too powerful for him even in his 40s.
“Chris Eubank Jr is a great talent and a cracking little fighter. It is all about timing but I think he will become a world champion,” Carl Froch said via skysports.com.
“Eubank Jr has been like having a brand new, top of the range Bugatti in the garage: you tell everyone it’s there but you don’t want anybody to see it because the days aren’t sunny enough!” Nelson said to skysport.scom.
Well, if Eubank Jr. is going to become a world champion in the future, then he’s going to need to target a weak link at 160, like Daniel Jacobs, the WBA “regular” champion, or WBO champion Andy Lee. Those are the only chances Eubank Jr. has of winning a world title at 160. If he faces Golovkin right now, he gets wiped out.
If he faces WBC champion Miguel Cotto, he gets blown out too. The only thing that Eubank Jr. can do is hope to become a paper champion. If that’s something he’s fine with, then he needs to be going after Jacobs or Lee right now instead of blabbering his head off about wanting to fight Golovkin. I mean, I understand what Eubank Jr. is doing by name dropping Golovkin’s name all the time.
Name dropping is used by fighters or people as a short cut to put their name among that of more famous and established people without them having to actually earn the right to be mentioned in the same breath. So instead of Eubank Jr. going out and proving that he deserves to be mentioned in the same sentence of Golovkin by beating Jacobs, Peter Quillin, Lee, Billy Joe Saunder, Miguel Cotto or Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, Eubank Jr. just includes his name with Golovkin anyway, and says he thinks he’s slow and beatable.
It’s basically nothing more than shortcut that Eubank Jr. is taking. It’s the lazy way of putting yourself in the same category with a fighter like Golovkin. Eubank Jr. never has to actually prove himself because he can name drop 24/7 instead of actually risking his hide by fighting the top guys. Instead of fighting the top guys though, we’re seeing Eubank Jr. fight Tony Jeter, Dmitry Chudinov, and Gary O’Sullivan.
“I’m here to win. I’m not here for a vacation” Jeter said via IFL TV. “I’m here to do a job. They’ve already announced his next fight [against Gary O’Sullivan]. I know Eubank Jr. is tough and talented. He needs to be worried about me. He looks gifted, fast and has decent power. We’re about the same size. He’s not that much bigger than me. Patrick Nielsen was so much bigger than me. Eubank is about the same size as me,” Jeter said.
Jeter didn’t lose to Nielsen because he was smaller than him. I saw the fight, and the size difference between the two guys was negligible. Jeter lost the fight because he wasn’t good enough to bet Nielsen.
“Potentially, talent-wise, he could be outstanding,” Johnny Nelson said to IFL TV. “That’s why they brought Adam Booth on board. We probably won’t see the benefit of that for 12 to 18 months. Junior has all the potential. I think Jeter is the right opponent at the right time. No [Eubank Jr. can’t beat Golovkin now]. No [Eubank Jr. won’t be able to beat Golovkin in 12 to 18 months]. It depends on his progression. It depends on how often he fights. It depends on how he develops. It depends on him. You don’t know in 18 months’ time how he develops. Right now, he’s trying to get his name connected with Gennady Golovkin. Most people say ‘no chance. What are you doing?’ It puts him in the same sentence. In reality, he [Eubank Jr.] doesn’t want to fight him right now. His dad [Chris Eubank Sr. aka English] doesn’t want to fight him. In reality, they’re thinking two years down the line if he’s still around. Let’s say two years. Anything before that would be too early. I think Golovkin is far too experienced and far too savvy at the moment,” Nelson said.
I think Nelson is dreaming if he thinks that Eubank Jr. will be able to beat Golovkin in two years. These aren’t dog years we’re talking about. I know when people get really old, they can age dramatically in two years, but that doesn’t have to people in their early 30s unless they fight a lot of wars in the ring. I don’t think Golovkin is going to have any problems facing the winner of the Saul “Canelo” Alvarez vs. Miguel Cotto fight, or defending his title against Lee and Tureano Johnson. Those will be easy fights for Golovkin, because all he needs to do is jab to beat those guys.
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