(Photo credit: Edward Diller/DiBella Entertainment) By Scott Gilfoid: #1 WBA Chris Eubank Jr’s promoter Eddie Hearn is hoping to possibly match Eubank Jr. against WBA “regular” middleweight champion Daniel Jacobs (31-1, 28 KOs) as early as April 9th in order to have that fight take place on the same card as his highly popular fighter Anthony Joshua at the O2 Arena in London, UK.
Hearn is about to start discussions with Jacobs’ management to put the fight together as soon as possible. Eubank Jr defeated Gary “Spike” O’Sullivan (22-2, 15 KOs) by a 7th round stoppage last Saturday night in a WBA World 160lb title eliminator on the undercard of the Joshua vs. Dillian Whyte card on Sky Box Office.
The victory for Eubank Jr made him the mandatory to Jacob’s WBA “regular” title, not the mandatory to the arguably more dangerous WBA “Super World” middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin. Eubank Jr. is going to have a tough fight on his hands against Jacobs, because he’s not a step up from O’Sullivan but also a huge step up from Billy Joe Saunders, a fighter who beat Eubank Jr. last year in November 2014. It stands to reason that if Eubank Jr. can’t even beat a fighter like Saunders, then he has pretty much no business being in the ring with a talent like Jacobs other than taking a likely beating and getting back in the end of the line.
“He [Eubank Jr] is now mandatory for Daniel Jacobs, so we will speak to the WBA today and find out when they want that fight to happen,” said Hearn to skysports.com. “I think Chris and his Dad are keen for that fight to happen next. Whether that’s part of the April card at The O2 as well or whether we have one more and wait until the summer, I think they are easy either way.”
I wish Hearn a lot of luck trying to get Jacobs and his management to agree to fight Eubank Jr in the UK, because I do not see that happening. Hearn needs to realize that Jacobs is managed by the high-powered adviser Al Haymon, and I seriously doubt that Haymon is going to fall in lock step behind Hearn’s wacky idea of having Jacobs come over to the UK to defend his WBA title in front of a pro-Eubank Jr crowd.
That sounds more like a pipe dream on Hearn’s part to think that Jacobs and Haymon would ever willingly agree to put themselves in the one-down position to act like the challenger to come to the UK to defend against Eubank Jr, who may not even be a top five contender when you look at all the top middleweight contenders. I do not think Haymon is going to agree to that.
Hearn needs to come back down to Earth and realize that Eubank Jr is not in charge with Jacobs. In other words, Eubank Jr. is not fighting O’Sullivan again for another round of punching bag work. Eubank Jr. needs to pack his bags and get ready to travel to the U.S to likely fight Jacobs in his native Brooklyn, New York. I cannot see the fight happening anywhere else but good old Brooklyn.
Nevertheless, it is all good though, because Brooklyn is a place where visiting fighters get a fair deal. It is not as if Eubank Jr. would need to go into a fight against Jacobs in Brooklyn needing a half a dozen knockdowns in order to ensure he gets a draw out of the fight. Eubank Jr is not going to get robbed if he fights Jacobs there, and he won’t have to worry about a referee picking Jacobs back up and carrying him to his corner to help him survive.
Eubank Jr did not look good in the first three rounds of his fight against O’Sullivan last Saturday night. It did not matter that O’Sullivan was slow as molasses and totally basic with his fighting style. He had Eubank Jr. hurt almost every time he landed anything, and there were some moments that I thought that we might see an upset.
Jacobs is a much more active fighter than O’Sullivan, and more accurate with his shots. Jacobs has far better hand speed and better one-punch power. I honestly do not know how Eubank Jr. will be able to go more than three rounds with him. I do think Eubank Jr is capable of winning a world title one of these days if he lucks out and somehow beats a paper champion like WBO belt holder Andy Lee or maybe Saunders, but Jacobs is all wrong for Eubank Jr in my estimation.
Comments are closed.