By Scott Gilfoid: Chris Eubank Jr. (23-1, 18 KOs) says he’s going to “roast” middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin. Eubank Jr. says he’s formulated a plan that he plans on using against Golovkin when the two of them eventually share the ring together. Eubank Jr. says he’s not impressed with Golovkin, and he sees “holes” in his game that he plans on taking advantage of.
Just when the two of them will be facing each other is the big question. Eubank Jr. already blew one chance to fight Golovkin on September 10 last year when he failed to sign the contract for the fight.
Eubank Jr. instead opted to fight local domestic level fighter Tom Doran in a fight that got very little attention with British boxing fans. Eubank Jr. will be fighting this Saturday night on February 4 against IBO super middleweight champion Renold Quinlan (11-1, 7 KOs) on ITV pay-per-view from the Olympic in London, England. This is for a world title, but it’s not one of the major world titles that are highly sought after by fighters, which you can argue is why Quinlan has it rather than one of the better known fighters in the super middleweight division.
“I believe so and I’m sure,” said Eubank Jr. to ITV about his fight on Saturday night against Quinlan. “This is the chance and I’m going to take it, and I’m going to go forth and challenge all the other champions. Before I was saying who I wanted to fight, and people said I didn’t have the right. I was skipping in line. Now I have a chance to win a world title, and that title puts me in line to go forth and get those fights. I’m coming for everybody. DeGale, I want the rest of those teeth. I told everybody, I’m going to put them on my mantelpiece. Golovkin, I know I can beat him. He’s seen by you guys as one of the best pound-for-pound in the world. I don’t believe it. I don’t see it. I want him, and I can see holes. Yes, he’s got power, but it’s going to take a hell of a lot more than that to beat me. I’ve got a very nice plan for that man. So Golovkin, I’m coming for you. I’m going to roast that guy. Saunders, I’m never going to get past that fight. I’m never not going to have him out of my mind until I right that wrong. I want to even the score,” said Eubank Jr.
It’s interesting that Eubank Jr. is choosing to talk about Golovkin, Saunders and DeGale right now rather than keeping the topic on his opponent Quinlan for Saturday. I get the impression that Eubank Jr. is name dropping in a desperate manner so that he can get more attention from the boxing world, and get a few more PPV buys for the Quinlan fight. Since not a lot of fans are interested in the Eubank Jr-Quinlan fight the way that some had hoped, we’re now seeing Eubank Jr. name dropping Golovkin, Saunders and DeGale’s name. Is this an accident or is he doing it to help attract interest in his fight against Quinlan? I think it might be for Eubank Jr. to sell a few more PPV buys for the Quinlan fight, which could turn out to be a real stinker.
I think Golovkin would totally obliterate Eubank Jr. within two or three rounds if that fight ever gets made, and I’m not sure that it ever will. I think Eubank Jr. and his dad will be too slow with the negotiations for a fight between them and Golovkin to ever get made. As soon as they start dragging their feet again in the negotiations, I see Team Golovkin walking away again and choosing to fight someone that is more willing to sign on the dotted line in a timely fashion. That’s what happened the last time Golovkin and Eubank Jr. were in negotiations. Team Golovkin needed to move on, so they opted to fight Kell Brook after his promoter Eddie Hearn offered him as a solution to end the stalemate in the Eubank Jr. negotiations.
Eubank Jr. needs to keep his focus on his task at hand with Renold Quinlan on Saturday night. You don’t want to see Eubank Jr. lose his focus and end up getting beaten again like he did against Saunders. Quinlan is going to be looking to knock Eubank Jr. out with every punch he throws on Saturday night. Quinlan isn’t going to mess around in this fight. He’s going to want to KO Eubank Jr. and I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s exactly what he does.
Eubank Jr. tends to fight the same way every time with him walking his opponents down and throwing lots of uppercuts in an exaggerated form. Eubank Jr. is kind of one dimensional the way he telegraphs his uppercuts. He throws that punch way too often for him to be able to get away with using it against a world class fighter like Golovkin. If that’s what Eubank Jr. is going to try to do against Golovkin, then he’s going to get knocked out with a straight right hand or a left hook.
You can’t get stuck with a single pattern the way that Eubank Jr. does with his habit of throwing uppercuts. Those punches are meant to be thrown rarely rather than all the time. Eubank Jr. gets away with it because he’s been facing such awful opposition since his loss to Saunders. He’s not had to develop his boxing skills because he’s not been fighting good opposition. You’ll be able to say the same thing after Saturday night, because Quinlan is not a great fighter. He’s a decent fighter that isn’t in the same class as the top guys at 168. That’s why Eubank Jr. will have a great chance of beating him.
Eubank Jr. is probably going to beat Quinlan on Saturday. I say probably, because he’s already come undone once in a loss to Billy Joe Saunders in 2014. If Eubank Jr. was all that great, he would have won that fight. The fact that Eubank Jr. lost and never avenged the loss shows you that there are some problems with his game and with his motivation to get important fights. Eubank Jr. should have been past the level of fighters like Quinlan and Tom Doran a long time ago. It’s kind of sad that Eubank Jr. is still at this level at his age.
It makes you wonder where he’ll be next year at this same time. Will Eubank Jr. have fought a lot of top level fighters in 2017 or will he stay at the same level he’s been stuck at for the last couple of years since his loss to Saunders. All you can do is judge Eubank Jr. for what he’ done in the past, and expect him to continue to do the same thing. He’d told the boxing world about himself by the type of fighters that he’s chosen to fight. I would think that he’ll stay with his set pattern of fighting the more obscure fighters rather than breaking from that mold to fight guys like James DeGale, Saunders and Golovkin.
Eubank Jr. is going to need to show more punch variation if he wants to beat Quinlan. He’s not going to beat him if all he’s going to do is throw uppercuts.