By Scott Gilfoid: WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders (23-0, 12 KOs) has revealed that he has plans on a big summer fight against either Chris Eubank Jr. (22-1, 17 KOs) or Gennady Golovkin (34-0, 31 KOs). Saunders, 26, isn’t saying which of the two he’ll be facing in the summer.
Either way, he could have a tough time beating either of them. The fight against Golovkin will likely only happen if the unbeaten IBF/IBO/WBA middleweight champion agrees to fight Saunders in the UK, which might not happen. Golovkin and his promoter Tom Loeffler will likely choose to stay out of the ring until they find out if they’ll be getting the unification fight against WBC middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez in September.
If Golovkin faces Saunders in the summer, then it would wipe out any chances of him getting the fight against Canelo in September. The only way a fight against Saunders will happen is if Canelo makes it clear that he doesn’t want to fight Golovkin later this year.
Saunders recently pulled out of his scheduled April 30 fight against fringe contender Max Bursak, saying that he has a hand injury that he suffered from a sparring session. However, there are some boxing fans who think Saunders pulled out of the Bursak fight so that he could be free to fight Eubank Jr. or Golovkin in a much bigger money fight.
“I’m going to jump straight into the big fight. My part is all done, signed and in the post, so hopefully we’ll get it on. It’s either a big rematch or Golovkin,” said Saunders to thesun.co.uk. “If it’s a second fight with Eubank, I’ll smash him to pieces. He won’t lay a glove on me — bet your house on it. As for Golovkin, to be the best you’ve got to beat the best. On paper, he’s 10 times better than me, but on the night I’ll test myself to see how good I am.”
If Saunders faces Eubank Jr. next, then I see that as a clear victory for Eubank Jr. He’s really improved a great deal since his narrow 12 round split decision defeat to Saunders in 2014. Eubank Jr. would have won that fight if he didn’t pose after throwing punches. There were many instances in the fight where Eubank Jr. wasted valuable time by posing after throwing punches instead of continuing to throw leather. It was a very strange fighting style that Eubank Jr. showed early in that fight. He didn’t start doing well until the second half of the fight when he stopped posing after every punch and started letting his hands go.
Eubank Jr. doesn’t pose nearly as much now when he fights compared to back them. I think he looks 100 percent better now. Since Eubank Jr’s loss in 2014, he’s won his last four fights in beating Tony Jeter, Nick Blackwell, Gary “O’Sullivan and Dmitry Chudinov. Yeah, Eubank Jr. has been facing awful opposition and undercutting his own career by not stepping it up several levels, but he at least has looked improved. I think Saunders would take a thrashing if he faces Eubank Jr. fight now.
Saunders should take whatever fight that will bring him the most money. If that’s Golovkin, then he should wait until that fight happens. If it can’t happen until next year, then Saunders needs to avoid the Eubank Jr. fight and take easy opponents until then.
If Saunders faces anyone good before the Golovkin clash, I think he loses to them. Saunders is only a six-round fighter in my book. The guy can only fight hard for six rounds. After the 6th round, he gets sloppy and very, very tired looking.