By Scott Gilfoid: In a controversial stoppage, WBA interim middleweight champion Chris Eubank Jr. (20-1, 15 KOs) stopped a badly over-matched #13 WBA fringe contender Tony Jeter (20-5-1, 14 KOs) in the 2nd round on Saturday night at the Sheffield Arena in Sheffield, UK.
Eubank Jr. came into the ring like a peacock, posing perfectly still, staring at the audience and looking wild-eyed. To me, it looked like he was imitating his father Chris Eubank Sr. in how he used to enter the ring. I don’t know why Eubank Jr. couldn’t just do it his own way.
I hate to say it, but I predicted this was going to be an easy stoppage win for Eubank Jr. Jeter was knocked out by Patrick Nielsen in two rounds last year. Nielsen is the same fighter that Dmitry Chudinov easily beat recently. Eubank Jr. easily beat Chudinov earlier this year.
This wasn’t even a fight. Jeter only threw a few token jabs to the midsection before he was dropped in the 1st round by a double left hook to the head from Eubank Jr. Once Jeter was hurt, he stopped throwing punches altogether and just held for the remainder of the 1st round. At the start of the 2nd, Eubank Jr. caught Jeter against the ropes and flurried on him until referee Howard John Foster panicked and stopped the fight there and then. Heck, even Jeter was angry at the stoppage, and he was the one getting pummeled.
I can’t believe the Eubank Jr. vs. Jeter fight was in the main event. Eubank Jr’s promoter Eddie Hearn really gave the fans a bad deal in putting this slop on as the main event. If this was a restaurant that we were going to tonight, we would have been getting sloppy Joes instead of a nice steak meal. It’s hard to understand why Sky Sports agreed to let the Eubank Jr-Jeter fight be in a main event rather than an off television fight like it should have been.
The fight was halted in the 2nd round after Eubank Jr. landed a flurry of head shots that had Jeter’s head bouncing every which way while he was backed up against the ropes. Referee Howard John Foster opted to halt the mismatch 29 seconds into the round. The crowd hated the stoppage and booed loudly, and I don’t blame them. It was goofy stoppage.
Immediately after the fight was stopped, Eubank Jr. stood like a statue, staring at the crowd, listening to the loud boos, and apparently drunk on his success against this poor fodder opponent Jeter. The look on Eubank Jr’s face was that of someone who was beaming, as if he really accomplished something rather than him merely beating a bottom feeder that his promoter Eddie Hearn dug up for him to look good against.
Eubank Jr. also dropped Jeter in the 1st round with a double left hook to the head late in the round. Jeter was forced to clinch his way out of the round.
Eubank Jr’s promoter Eddie Hearn was really crowing after the fight about how excited he was about Eubank Jr’s win over the fodder guy that he put in with him tonight. Hearn looked like he was in ecstasy as he announced that Eubank Jr. will be fighting the winner of the December 5th fight between Peter Quillin and Daniel Jacobs. Eubank Jr’s next fight against #11 WBA Gary “Spike” O’Sullivan on December 12th will be an WBA middleweight title eliminator. The guys that gets passed over in the eliminator is #4 WBA Tureano Johnson and #5 WBA Arif Magomedov. I think one of those guys deserves to be involved with the WBA title eliminator against Eubank Jr. rather than the #11 WBA O’Sullivan. I’m just saying. Why does O’Sullivan get a shot in an WBA 160lb eliminator rather than Johnson or Magomedov? It doesn’t seem fair that those guys were passed over by the World Boxing Association.
“I went in there and did the job,” Eubank Jr. bragged after the fight. “I can’t control what the referee did. That’s a warm-up fight to get rid of the ring rust and to get ready for Spike O’Sullivan. You can’t blame him. He was hurt badly. People want to see someone get hurt badly. I’m coming for Spike O’Sullivan now. He’s talking a lot of mess. It’s time for punishment. It’s going to be all out war. I’m going to be an angry animal. Be ready for it,” Eubank Jr. said.
“We’re chasing Gennady Golovkin,” Chris Eubank Sr. said after the fight. “The next fight is on December 12th. He’s going to show more of what he can do.”
It’s nice that Eubank Sr. had to throw in the obligatory name-dropping comment about Eubank Jr. chasing Golovkin. The comment, of course, is totally pointless though, given that Eubank Sr. said that the fight against Golovkin won’t likely occur for another two more years. In other words, Eubank Sr. mentioning Golovkin’s name now just looks like flat out name dropping. Instead of talking about Golovkin, Eubank Sr. should be focusing on Spike O’Sullivan, because that’s who Eubank Jr. has to beat in order to face the winner of the Jacobs-Quillin fight for the WBA “regular” paper middleweight title. Golovkin is the real champion.
“Spike O’Sullivan on December 12th,” Eubank Jr’s promoter Eddie Hearn said. “They’re making that the WBA middleweight eliminator for the winner of Peter Quillin vs. Daniel Jacobs. The winner of that fight becomes the mandatory for Quillin vs. Jacobs,” Hearn said.
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EBU super bantamweight champion Gavin McDonnell (14-0-2, 4 KOs) defeated Jeremy Parodi (37-3-1, 9 KOs) by a 12 round unanimous decision in a tougher than expected fight. The final judges’ scores were 117-111, 117-111, and 118-110.
McDonnell used his height and reach to dominate the shorter Parodi. McDonnell didn’t do nearly as well as Parodi compared to Carl Frampton, who stopped Parodi in the 6th round two years ago in 2013.
I thought there were a lot of close rounds that could have gone to Parodi, becaus ehe was landing the harder shots the entire fight and putting the pressure on. The only thing that McDonnell was doing was throwing limp jabs and power shots with absolutely nothing on them.
“I’m going to earn my shot at a world title. When I get there, I’m going to stay there,” McDonnell said after the fight.
McDonnell has got a huge jump up in class that he’ll need to take for him to go from the European level to the world level to win a world title. Heck, to even compete against the contenders at the World level, McDonnell is going to have some serious problems. Gavin is obviously not as good as his brother Jamie McDonnell is.
The power difference is fairly dramatic. I don’t think that Gavin is going to be able to find the power face the top 122lb fighters in the division. McDonnell needs to hit the weight room and put some muscles on his skinny frame, because his lack of power obviously has a lot to do with his rail thin frame. If he could put on some muscles and then move up to lightweight or light welterweight, it hink he’d be a 100 percent better.
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