By Scott Gilfoid: #13 WBA Gary “Spike” O’Sullivan (22-2, 15 KOs) believes that his former conqueror Chris Eubank Jr. (23-1, 18 KOs) has the kind of talent that would enable him to give the super talented Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (35-0, 32 KOs) problems. O’Sullivan is impressed with Eubank Jr’s conditioning.
O’Sullivan says he doesn’t know how good Eubank Jr’s chin is because he didn’t catch him with a clean enough shot in their fight last December. Eubank Jr. won that fight by a 7th round knockout. O’Sullivan did appear to shake Eubank Jr. up in the early rounds before he gassed out and stopped throwing punches.
Golovkin could be facing Eubank Jr. in September in the UK. We’re going to find out this week if the fight can get made. If Eubank Jr’s promoter Eddie Hearn isn’t able to negotiate the fight with Triple G this week, then it’s likely Golovkin’s management will look in another direction towards someone else.
Golovkin can’t devote too much time trying to make this fight because he’s already wasted time with trying to get a fight against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez.
“I think he can give Golovkin trouble to be honest,” said O’Sullivan to irish-boxing.com. “I think he is freakishly fit, His chin? I don’t know because I don’t think I ever caught him square on the chin. I think I caught him around the nose and mouth area, but I didn’t get to twist his neck.”
O’Sullivan is giving Eubank Jr. more credit than he probably deserves. If O’Sullivan had fought a smarter fight, I think he would have given Eubank Jr. huge problems. O’Sullivan stopped throwing punches early on in their fight, and that’s when Eubank Jr. took over the bout and was able to punish him with shots until getting the stoppage in the seventh round.
It was a winnable fight for O’Sullivan if he’d just let his hands go instead of letting Eubank Jr. take over the fight. O’Sullivan needed to put more pressure on Eubank Jr. and that would have been the difference in the fight because I think he would have knocked him out.
“He did take some shots and he is tough and game. He wants it too I like that desire. You have to say he is the real deal, I still don’t like him though!” said “O’Sullivan.
For Eubank Jr. to have a chance against a talent like Golovkin, he’ll need to be able to take a great deal of punishment to the head and to the body. Eubank Jr. can certainly move his head, but he’s not going to be able to move his body out of the way of GGG’s big shots because it’s not possible for him to get out of the way of the incoming that Golovkin will be hitting him with to the body.
Eubank Jr. has won his last five fights since his loss to Billy Joe Saunders in 2014. Eubank Jr’s wins have come against Dmitry Chudinov, 40-year-old Tony Jeter, Nick Blackwell and Tom Durant. In other words, Eubank Jr. has been fighting mediocre opposition. It’s too bad that Golovkin doesn’t wait until Eubank Jr. fights someone good to prove himself because he’s getting a world title shot off the back of mediocre fighters.