Eubank Jr: Canelo is more BEATABLE than Golovkin

By Boxing News - 05/15/2020 - Comments

By Sean Jones: Chris Eubank Jr. says he views Canelo Alvarez as more beatable than Gennadiy Golovkin, and he feels has the style to give the Mexican star a lot of problems. Golovkin 40-1-1, 35 KOs) is the more challenging fight for Eubank Jr.

Roy Jones Jr. is now training the twice-beaten Eubank Jr., and he’s got his eye on challenging WBC middleweight champion Jermall Charlo (30-0, 22 KOs). However, Eubank Jr. would like to fight Canelo or GGG if the fights were available to him.

The money fights for Eubank Jr. would be against Canelo and Golovkin, but they’re also ones that have little chance of happening.

Eubank’s fast pace would be trouble for Canelo

It makes sense for Eubank, 30, to believe that Canelo is the easier fight for him because the Golden Boy Promotions fighter has a poor gas tank, and he fades after six rounds. Even when the pace is slow, Canelo still gasses out in the second half of his fights. We saw that in Canelo’s two fights with GGG, as well as in his match against Daniel Jacobs.

The former IBO super-middleweight champion Eubank Jr. (29-2, 22 KOs) had planned on fighting in June or July, but it’s unknown when he’ll be back inside the ring because of recent events.

Eubank Jr. came close to fighting Golovkin in 2016, but the negotiations dragged on too long promoter Eddie Hearn chose to substitute Kell Brook for GGG. It still bothers Eubank Jr. to this day that Hearn took his fight with Golovkin away from him and gave it to Brook, but it’s understandable why he choose to make that move.

According to Hearn, Eubank Jr’s dad was asking for a lot of things in the negotiations, and it was taking too long. Hearn started to worry that Golovkin would go in another direction, so he offered the fight to welterweight Brook, who readily accepted.

Image: Eubank Jr: Canelo is more BEATABLE than Golovkin

Eubank Jr. wants Golovkin fight

“If you’re going to ask me what my number one pick would be, it would be a toss-up between Golovkin and Alvarez,” said Eubank Jr. to PBC Podcast.

“I’ve wanted to fight Golovkin for years and I was literally a day or two away from the fight happening, and then it got taken away from me and given to Kell Brook by Eddie Hearn. So that is the fight I would love,” he said.

It’s possible that Eubank Jr. could get a fight against Golovkin at some point, but not in 2020. Golovkin will be defending his IBF middleweight title against Kamil Szeremeta next in 2020 if boxing is allowed to continue. If the fight can’t take place this year, then it’ll be moved to 2021.

Glolovkin has the Szeremeta fight that he needs to get out of the way, and then a trilogy match against Canelo. Under an ideal situation, Golovkin could be free to face Eubank Jr. in 2021 if he’s interested in facing him.

It’ll depend on Eubank Jr. He needs to get some solid wins under his belt for him to lure GGG to face him. Eubank Jr. beat Matt Korobov by a second-round injury stoppage last December. Korobov injured his left shoulder in the second round, and he couldn’t continue.

Before that fight, Eubank Jr. beat former super-middleweight champion James DeGale by a 12 round decision in February of last year. This was NOT prime DeGale from years ago.

Canelo would have problem with Eubank Jr’s style

“Canelo Alvarez, of course; he is probably the biggest name in boxing right now, and I think he’s more than beatable,” said Eubank Jr. “With my type of style, with my speed, with my punch output, with my fearlessness.

I’m not going in there to survive like so many opponents. I’m going to go in there and meet him head-on. If he wants to scrap, we can scrap. If he wants to box, we can box. I can do it all,” said Eubank Jr.

It’s more than Eubank Jr’s style that would cause Canelo problems. It’s his engine. If Canelo isn’t able to get his routine rest breaks in each round, he’ll turn red in the face and struggle.

It’s surprising that Golovkin didn’t take advantage of Canelo’s stamina problems, but he has a poor engine himself, so he couldn’t push the pace the way a more active and smarter fighter would. If Eubank Jr. forced Canelo to fight for the full three minutes of every round, he’d be fighting on fumes by the sixth round, and it would be easy prey for him.

Canelo and Golden Boy likely won’t ever fight Eubank Jr. because they would know that his style of fighting is all wrong for him. Eubank’s best bet for challenging for a world title is for him to go after a fight against WBC 160-pound champion Jermall Charlo. That’s a match that is possible, and winnable as well for Eubank Jr.

YouTube video