Eubank Jr vs O’Sullivan analysis

By Boxing News - 12/12/2015 - Comments

eubankBy Scott Gilfoid: #1 WBA Chris Eubank Jr. (20-1, 15 KOs) and #6 WBA Gary “Spike” O’Sullivan (22-1, 15 KOs) will be facing each other tonight in a WBA middleweight title eliminator bout at the O2 Arena in London, UK. Pretty much everyone is predicting a victory for Eubank Jr. in this fight. I can’t disagree with them.

Eubank Jr. has the talent to win this fight, but only because he’s facing a mediocre contender in O’Sullivan. If this was a tough contender like Tureano Johnson, I think it would be too tough a nut for the constantly posing Eubank Jr. to crack.

Former 168lb belt holder Carl Froch is picking Eubank Jr. to win this fight. Froch has sparred Eubank Jr. and he sees him as something special. For some reason, Froch never sparred Tureano Johnson and Gennady Golovkin.

I wonder what he would say about them if he had shared the squared circle with those two talents in the past.

“I can’t overlook Eubank winning this,” Carl Froch said to skysports.com. “It could well go all the way with him winning quite comfortably on points, but I think Eubank Jr might manage to get the stoppage in those late rounds,” Froch said.

I doubt that Eubank Jr. will get a stoppage in this fight because he doesn’t put his punches together enough for him to get knockouts against decent level opposition. Eubank Jr. spends too much time posing after throwing punches rather than having the sense enough to know that he would be better off throwing another shot directly after.

Heck, even when Eubank Jr. is facing fodder opposition, he has a nasty habit of posing after he lands a clean shot. I think it’s something to do with maybe him wanting to look good for the cameras from the media. It’s just very, very odd. I’ve never seen a fighter pose to admire his work the way that Eubank Jr. does. But in the case of him, he seems to pose in order to look good for the cameras, and it’s quite stupid to say the least.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Lrh3GnOfWM

I know Eubank Jr. has a new trainer in Adam Booth, but I’d be surprised if Booth is able to get the posing out of Eubank Jr’s backside, because I think that might be something that is too far ingrained for him to stop at this point.

I think Eubank Jr. would be 100 percent better if he didn’t pose, but for him to stop, I think he would need a trainer that would scream at him each time he did that and read the riot act to him. Booth seems too gentle to do that.

If anything, I could see Booth getting to within breath level of Eubank Jr. in between rounds to tell him to stop with the posing. I just don’t think that’s the kind of approach that is needed to wean Eubank Jr from that bad habit. I think he needs a trainer that will scream at him to the point where his ears hurt for him to finally stop doing that. Even then, I’m not sure that Eubank Jr. will ever stop posing.

“I sparred Eubank Jr and I played with him and then he went and told everyone he schooled me,” James DeGale said to skysports.com. “It was the most stupid thing I had heard in my life. I think you have to make him favorite for this one though, so I’ll go with Eubank Jr on points,” DeGale said.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4qp4r1zffA

It’s painfully obvious that Eubank Jr is going to win this fight. This is a mismatch. We’re talking about a guy that was whipped by Billy Joe Saunders by a lopsided 12 round unanimous decision two years ago when you talk about O’Sullivan.

You’ve got to give Eubank Jr’s promoter Eddie Hearn a lot of credit for putting the fight together and getting the World Boxing Association’s approval in making the fight a WBA title eliminator rather than them insisting on Eubank Jr. fighting a more talented fighter. This fight is just a case of good soft match-making by Hearn in picking a slow, hittable fighter in O’Sullivan. If Eubank Jr. had to fight someone good like Tureano Johnson, Willie Monroe Jr., Ryota Murata, Arif Magomedov, Antoine Douglas or Dominic Wade, I think it would be a lot tougher for Eubank Jr. I don’t know that he could beat any of those talents.



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