By Scott Gilfoid: The much talked about fight between IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (35-0, 32 KOs) and Chris Eubank Jr. (23-1, 18 KOs) have a working date of August 27 on Sky Box Office in the UK, according to Dan Rafael. With the Golovkin-Eubank Jr. fight possible for 8/27, it will push the unification match between IBF welterweight champion Kell “Special K” Brook and WBO 147lb champion Jessie Vargas for September 24 on Sky Box Office.
There’s no way that both PPV broadcasts could take place in September, because that would be asking a lot of the British fans to have to pay for two PPV events rather than one.
Eubank Jr. and his promoters at Matchroom Sport have a deadline of this week to sign the contract for the Golovkin fight. If they don’t get the fight negotiated in the next two days, then Golovkin and his promoter Tom Loeffler will be moving on to face another opponent that they can sign quickly.
Eubank Jr. has been doing a lot of talking about believing that he can beat Golovkin, and expose him. Eubank Jr. was talking a great deal before his recent win over Tom Doran last Saturday night at the O2 Arena in London, England. However, since beating Doran, Eubank Jr. has ratcheted up his talk about GGG, and he and his father Chris Eubank Sr. seems to really want this fight. We’re going to find out how badly they want it this week when it comes to signing the contract for the fight.
If they choose not to sign the contract, then that would suggest that they didn’t fancy the fight due to the risk involved. Right now, Eubank Jr. only has one defeat on his resume, a close 12 round decision loss to Billy Joe Saunders two years ago in 2014. But if Eubank Jr. were to fight Golovkin, he would be risking a brutal knockout loss. It could be a very, very embarrassing loss for Eubank Jr. if Triple G knocks him clean out or forces him to quit like we’ve seen in the past with some of his other opponents.
The trade-off is that Eubank Jr. could make a bundle from the fight with a career high payday if enough British fans purchase it on PPV. Eubank Jr. isn’t going to get a big payday against anyone else in the foreseeable future unless Mexican star Saul “Canelo” Alvarez was to show interest in fighting him. I cannot see that happening, but you never know. Canelo is facing WBO 154lb champion Liam Smith on September 17 on HBO PPV, and that’s a fight that smells of disaster in terms of American PPV sales. However, if Canelo is willing to fight a British fighter that the casual U.S American fans have never heard of in Liam Smith, then it’s always possible that he might be interested in fighting Eubank Jr. one of these days. I don’t know how much interest Canelo will have in fighting Eubank Jr. if he gets blown out by Golovkin in two or three rounds. The only advantage in Canelo fighting Eubank Jr. under those circumstances is to get the American fans a measuring stick so they can compare his performance against Eubank Jr. to that of Golovkin’s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4TkPams-7E
Personally, I don’t see Eubank Jr. signing the contract for the Golovkin fight, because I doubt that he was ever sincere about his interest in the fight. I see the whole thing as a charade, a ploy for Eubank Jr. to get some badly needed publicity to give him a huge jump start for his career. By saying he’s willing to fight Golovkin – and then not singing the contract – there will be enough fans that will now know he exists to help him bring in better ratings for his future fights.
Golovkin and his promoter Tom Loeffler would be smart if they have a Plan-B option they can turn to when/if the Eubank Jr. fight fails to take place. They won’t want to be left at the starting blocks again for the second time. Canelo wasted a bunch of Golovkin’s time with him hanging around waiting and hoping he could get a match against him. Now I think it’s going to be Eubank Jr. pulling the same move. I hope I’m wrong. I won’t be surprised if we hear Eubank Jr. and his father say this week that they’ll take the fight with GGG in a year and a half like Canelo and Daniel Jacobs both are doing.