By Eric Baldwin: British middleweight title holder Chris Eubank Jr. (23-1, 18 KOs) took a shot at Kell Brook and IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (36-0, 33 KOs) on his social media site on Saturday when he said that if GGG wants a fight, he should face him because his corner doesn’t have towels.
It was kind of a low blow in taking a shot at the 30-year-old Brook, whose trainer Dominic Ingle threw in the towel into the ring in the 5th round to save him from taking punishment in his fight against Golovkin at the O2 Arena in London, UK. Brook was getting worked over by Golovkin at the time that Ingle tossed the towel into the ring to have referee Marlon Wright stop the match.
”@GGGBoxing if you want a fight with a real British Middleweight. Come get some. My corner don’t own towels,” said Eubank Jr.
If Golovkin can’t get a unification fight against WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders, who called him out last Sunday, then a title defense against #2 WBA, #2 WBC Eubank Jr. would make for a good fight in the UK. However, Eubank Jr. had his chance to fight Golovkin for his fight last Saturday, but he didn’t agree to the fight in time for the deadline that this promoter Eddie Hearn had given him.
Hearn turned around and offered the same deal to Kell Brook, and he accepted it. Eubank Jr. appears to be interested in taking the fight. I wish I knew whether Eubank Jr. was serious or not, because it would be a real pity if he’s just name dropping Golovkin’s name to get attention from the boxing media to have them mention his name a lot without him really wanting to fight GGG.
“In my opinion, it is nobody’s job but the referee to stop a fight. I have never been taught to rely on my corner to take me out of a fight, to take me out of a sticky situation. This is boxing,” said Eubank Jr. to talksport. “In boxing, you fight to the end. You fight until you cannot fight any more.”
Eubank Jr. says he’s never had to reply on his corner to stop one of his fights, but you also have to realize that he’s not been fighting high quality opposition with the exception of Billy Joe Saunders, who isn’t a big puncher. Eubank Jr. hasn’t been in the ring with someone that could give him a real beat down like Golovkin or Daniel Jacobs.
Ever since suffering a loss to Saunders in 2014, Eubank Jr. has been taking it easy in terms of opposition with him beating Dmitri Chudinov, Tony Jeter, Gary O’Sullivan, Nick Blackwell, and Tom Doran. Rather than fighting for a world title against Jacobs, which Eubank Jr. could have done, he chose to fight Blackwell for the British middleweight title. Eubank Jr. has now defended that belt once in beating Doran last June. Eubank Jr. will be fighting next on October 22nd against Tommy Langford (17-0, 6 KOs) at the Motorpoint Arena, in Cardiff, Wales. For Eubank Jr., this will be another defense of his British 160lb title. Just how much longer Eubank Jr. will decide on keeping that belt is the big question.
“My father has been in way more severe situations than Kell Brook was in and his corner never pulled him out and he never tried to find a way out. He stayed there, stood his ground,” said Eubank Jr.
Eubank Jr. might not have realized at the time of the stoppage that Brook had suffered a really bad eye injury with him suffering a broken eye socket in his right eye. That’s a serious injury, and you don’t want to be fighting like that. Brook doesn’t need to risk having his eye permanently damaged, so it’s understandable why his corner stopped the fight.
You can argue that Ingle could have stopped the contest a few rounds earlier back in the 2nd, when Brook first started showing signs of having a problem with his eye. He obviously didn’t know how bad the problem was with his eye at the time otherwise he would have pulled him out. Brook looked miserable in his corner between the 4th and 5th rounds. Ingle had Brook covered with a wet towel to try and decrease the swelling on his eye, but it wasn’t going to fix the problem. That would have been an ideal time to stop the fight rather than having Brook go out for the 5th and take a boatload of punishment from Golovkin.
If Eubank Jr. wants the Golovkin fight, he needs to have his promoter Eddie Hearn work on negotiating the fight with Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler. Right now, Golovkin doesn’t have his next opponent picked out for December. He wants to fight WBO champion Billy Joe Saunders, but it’s a fight that will be difficult to make, especially if Golden Boy Promotions chooses to sign Saunders up for a title defense against their fighter Saul Canelo Alvarez.
Golovkin’s best chance for a fight against a top British fighter might be Eubank Jr. if he’s serious about wanting to fight him. I guess we’ll know soon how serious Eubank Jr. is if Loeffler attempts to put the fight together. Eubank Jr. had the option of fighting Golovkin in September if his father had met the deadline set by Hearn. Since he didn’t, Hearn offered the same fight terms to Brook, and he readily accepted. Brook is said to have made a lot of money for the Golovkin fight. It could wind up being more than $3 million. That’s good money. It’s hard to believe that Eubank Jr. didn’t take that fight when it was offered to him, because he’s not going to have too many chances like that to get similar paydays in the future, especially if he gets beaten again by someone.
Eubank Jr. went on to say that he wasn’t surprised that Golovkin beat Brook. He didn’t see anything in the fight that really surprised him.