By Scott Gilfoid: Interim WBA 160lb champion Chris Eubank Jr (19-1, 14 KOs) successfully made weight for his title defense against little known #13 WBA bottom dweller Tony Jeter (20-4-1, 14 KOs) for their fight on Saturday night in the headline fight on Sky Sports 1 from the Sheffield Arena in Sheffield, Arena. The 26-year-old Eubank Jr looked good in coming in at 160lbs.
Eubank Jr always looks good, but unfortunately he doesn’t always fight good, as we saw recently with him getting beaten by Billy Joe Saunders in what was supposed to have been a winnable fight for Eubank Jr. For his part, the nearly 40-year-old Jeter weighed in at 159.6lbs. He looked good.
There’s not much to say about Jeter other than he looked at least two inches shorter than the 5’11” Eubank Jr, which obviously isn’t a good thing. Eubank Jr’s promoter Eddie Hearn was raving about this fight, and I don’t know why. There’s nothing to really rave about. Jeter was knocked out in the 2nd round by Patrick Nielsen last year in February 2014. Since then, Jeter has beaten four lower level opponents in Jeremy Marts (12-18), James Wayka (16-12-1), Jimmy Lange (38-5-2) and Guillermo Valdes (12-5). Unfortunately for Jeter, these are the type of guys that he’s built his record on. When you remove the fodder type opposition from Jeter’s resume in terms of wins, his record is 0-4-1. That’s not too good, is it?
Frankly, I’m surprised that Sky Sports gave the green light to the Eubank Jr-Jeter mismatch as a headline attraction, because I don’t see HBO or Showtime in the United States agreeing to put a mismatch like this in the main event. I think they would know that it would A. Not bring in good ratings due to Jeter being an unknown bottom dweller B. They would likely recognize the fight as having little value due it being a mismatch on paper. I mean, Jeter was knocked out just last year by Patrick Nielson in the 2nd round. Nielson in turn was soundly beaten by Dmitry Chudinov by a 12 round decision last year.
I’m just really surprised that Sky Sports is going to let this be a main event, because mismatches like this have a way of turning off the boxing public and making them not wanting to see boxing events again in the future. Sky are giving the fans a product in their main events. If that product is a bad one, then they turn off the fans. It’s like going out to a nice restaurant ordering some expensive veal cordon bleu. But instead of getting that tasty meal, you wind up with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on stale bread. That’s why I think Sky should have give the red light for the Eubank Jr-Jeter mismatch, and told Eddie Hearn that he needs to come back with something better than this for their main event. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with the Eubank Jr vs. Jeter fight if it were the first fight of the night in an off TV fight, but it’s not a television fight in my view due it not having the right ingredients to make it on television. When looking at a TV fight, you have to ask yourself ‘is this fight competitive and do the fight fans want to see this fight?’ If the answer is no to those questions, then you don’t put the mismatch on television.
Earlier this year, Eubank Jr easily beat Chudinov by a 12th round knockout. As such, when you unravel all those fights, you come to the conclusion that Jeter has no chance of winning on Saturday. But it’s more than Jeter having no chance of winning. It’s also the fact that he has no chance of even being competitive. Heck, I’d rather see a rematch of Eubank Jr’s mismatch against Chudinov than seeing Eubank Jr. beat up on an overmatched opponent like Jeter.
“This is Chris Eubank Jr’s Sky Sports debut and Tony Jeter is experienced and up for it,” former IBF/WBA/WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch said in his column at skysports.com. “He might be perfect to make Junior look good, but I don’t think he needs any help. I can see him showing us something very special. 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.”
As watered down as the super middleweight, and all divisions are with the potential for five world champions, I think it’s possible for Eubank Jr. to win a world title at 160, but that’s not really saying much. The real question is does Eubank Jr have the talent to be a REAL world champion by beating the likes of Miguel Cotto, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin. To that, I say no. If you throw Eubank Jr in with Cotto, Canelo and Golovkin, I see bad things happening for him. This isn’t something I see changing in two years after Eubank Jr has more time with new trainer Adam Booth. I think Eubank Jr would always lose to those fighters. We already saw Eubank Jr’s level recently in his loss to Saunders last November.
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