By Scott Gilfoid: In an offer that is likely to be rejected almost immediately, the World Boxing Association president Gilberto Mendoza wants #2 WBA Chris Eubank Jr. (23-1, 18 KOs) to take part in a tournament to decide an eventual opponent to fight for the WBA middleweight title, which is currently held by Gennady Golovkin.
The WBA is going to be reducing the champions in the division by ordering WBA “regular” middleweight belt holder to face WBA Super World champion Golovkin after the Kazakhstan fighters’ next match against Kell Brook on September 10. So instead of Eubank fighting Golovkin immediately, he would have to wait for him to face Jacobs.
In the meantime, Eubank Jr. will need to fight the untested #1 WBA contender Alfonso Blanco (12-0, 9 KOs) in a box-off. The winner of that fight will then face the winner of the Golovkin vs. Jacobs fight. It sounds good, but I don’t think Eubank Jr. is going to want to bother fighting the 30-year-old Blanco, who looks nothing special.
I see Eubank Jr. just waiting for Golovkin to give him a title shot in a voluntary defense rather than him having to work for the fight. It’s not even clear that Eubank Jr. really wants to fight Golovkin. The WBA president can order Eubank Jr. to fight Blanco, but if he doesn’t really want to fight Golovkin, I really don’t think he’s going to bother fighting this guy. Why would he? It’s nice that Mendoza is giving it a college try to setup his little tourney, but I doubt that Eubank Jr. is going to play the game. Golovkin obviously will because he wants to hold onto his WBA title. He’s not going to give it up by putting Mendoza on the ignore list by choosing not to fight Jacobs.
I think Golovkin wants that fight against GGG anyway. But as far as Eubank Jr. goes, no way do I see him even considering fighting Blanco for a second. That’s not because Blanco is a dangerous fighter, because he’s not. The guy is flawed and I don’t consider him even as good as Tommy Langford, but I just don’t think Eubank Jr. is going to be led around by the nose in being told who he has to fight in order to get a shot against Golovkin.
“We might have a special box-off to have only one world champion and that could involve Eubank, because he’s the No 2 right now,” said Mendoza to skysports.com. “’Triple G’, if he wins the fight against Brook, he has to defend his title immediately with Daniel Jacobs. I will order Blanco to defend against Eubank, and the winner of Golovkin-Jacobs will have to face the winner of Blanco and Eubank.”
This is almost too funny what Mendoza is saying. I don’t think he realizes that Eubank Jr. doesn’t have to jump through hoops to get a crack at Golovkin, because his promoter Tom Loeffler of K2 Promotions is very, very interested in making that fight. All Eubank Jr. has to do is to keep defending his British middleweight title against the domestic level fodder until the fight against Golovkin is dropped into his lap like an apple falling from a tree.
Blanco fought in the 2008 Olympics for Venezuela, and was beaten by Darren Sutherland by a 11-1 score. It wasn’t close. Since turning pro, Blanco has been facing weak opposition without stepping it up. At 30, it’s unclear why Blanco hasn’t been facing better opponents, but I guess it doesn’t matter because the WBA has shot him to the top of their odd rankings after his recent wins over Alvaro Robles and 41-year-old journeyman Sergey Khomitsky. It doesn’t quite make sense to me for Blanco to be installed as the WBA’s No.1 contender at 160 after wins over Robles and the journeyman Khomitsky, but then again, I see things in a logical way. If I was to see things in illogical way, I would say that Blanco deserves a No.1 ranking for beating an old journeyman and a little known fighter like Robles. Kell Brook easily beat Robles two years ago by an 8th round knockout. In Robles’ last fight, he was beaten by Carlos Ocampo.
Yeah, I do NOT understand how the WBA could shoot Blanco to the top of their rankings after wins over Robles and Khomitsky. After those wins, I would personally have Blanco ranked outside of the top 15. I would see those fights as a sign that Blanco is not seriously making an effort to fight high quality fighters, so I would downgrade him rather than move him up in the ranking system. Again, I see things logically, and I don’t believe in giving inflated rankings based on wins over fluff opponents.