By Charles Brun: Chris Eubank Jr. WON’T be fighting little-known replacement opponent Anatoli Muratov tonight as previously scheduled after the BBBofC took issue with the Kazakhstan fighter’s pre-fight medicals for their clash at the SSE Arena in Wembley.
There’s no word yet about what the British Boxing Board of Control was concerned about with Muratov’s medicals, but it had to be something important for the fight to be canceled.
As such, the fight is now canceled, and the arguably more compelling co-feature bout between talented welterweight contender David Avanesyan and Liam Taylor has been moved into the main event to replace the Eubank Jr. vs. Muratov match.
Eubank Jr. (30-2, 22 KOs) has been plagued by bad luck lately, as he was initially scheduled to fight fringe contender Sven Elbir for this card, but the German fighter tested positive for COVID-19 and had to pull out.
The 33-year-old German-based Muratov (24-2-1, 17 KOs) was brought in to replace Elbir as Eubank Jr’s opponent, but that fight too won’t happen.
Eubank Jr., 32, doesn’t need to be wasting his career with these godawful warm-up fights. I mean, he just had a tune-up fight last May against Marcus Morrison and looked terrible. How many warm-ups does Eubank Jr. need at his age before he gets back on the horse to try and resurrect his sinking career.
One warm-up fight should have been sufficient for Eubank Jr. to get back in there and start fighting opposition with a pulse, but to be devoting an entire year to ‘get back’ fights, it’s silly and dumb.
Eubank Jr. has been squawking about wanting to challenge IBF middleweight champion Gennadiy Golovkin. Still, he’s going about it in the wrong way in taking warm-up fights one after another without end.
Suppose Eubank Jr. lacks the talent and or confidence to fight first-tier opposition. In that case, he should retire and leave the game to the risk-takers like Jaime Munguia, Juan Macias Montiel, and Sergiy Derevyanchenko.
“I feel very strongly that first and foremost, the health and safety of all fighters is paramount,” said Adam Smith, the Sky Sports Head of Boxing.
“We’re hugely disappointed for Chris Eubank Jr, who has a big role to play in our new era on Sky Sports Boxing, and he will return on one of our shows in the coming weeks.”
With Eubank Jr. off the card, the dangerous slugger David Avanesyan will be defending his EBU welterweight strap against England’s Liam Taylor in the headliner.
The 33-year-old Avanesyan (27-3-1, 17 KOs) is fresh off his impressive sixth round knockout victory over 2016 Olympian Josh Kelly last February in Wembley. Avaneysan took apart the previously unbeaten Kelly, beating him down until the fight had to be stopped in the sixth round.
Following that victory, Avanesyan and his team called out unbeaten 147-lb contender Conor Benn, attempting to lure him into the ring. Still, he’s chosen not to take on the hard-hitting Russian fighter. Instead of agreeing to fight Avanesyan, Benn is interested in fighting the arguably over-the-hill Victor Ortiz, Chris Algieri, or Adrien Broner.
The 32-year-old Liam ‘Dynamo’ Taylor (23-1-1, 11 KOs) is up against it tonight, and it could be a short fight unless he’s got a good set of wheels.
Taylor has won his last two fights against little-known domestic level opposition since fighting to a four round technical draw against Chris Jenkins in 2019.
In 2015, Taylor was soundly beaten by Tyrone Nurse by a 10 round unanimous decision. Taylor avenged the loss to Nurse in 2018, beating him by a 10 round split decision.
Avaneysan will likely be too much for Taylor tonight with his punching power, and we should see a knockout by the sixth round.
As long as Taylor doesn’t run from Avanesyan, this fight is heading for a knockout. Taylor at least needs to try and win because it’s going to be terrible if he stinks out the joint by getting on his bike from the opening bell trying to survive.