By Scott Gilfoid: Liam Williams has suffered an injury and is out for his fight against Chris Eubank Jr. on December 11th at the Motorpoint Arena in Cardiff, Wales. It’s a tough blow for Sky Sports because this is one that had a lot of boxing fans interested in watching it next month.
The 29-year-old Williams (23-3-1, 18 KOs) was expected to give former IBO super middleweight champion Eubank Jr. (31-2, 23 KOs) a tough test.
There’s no word yet about a replacement opponent for the 32-year-old Eubank Jr. to try and salvage his December 11th date.
Given that there are only three weeks to go before that event, it’s unlikely that a live body can be found in time for Eubank Jr. to fight.
With that said, Eubank Jr. has been taking on low-level opposition lately with his contests against Wanik Awdijan and Marcus Morrison, so it shouldn’t be that difficult for his promoters to find a similar opponent that can fill in on three weeks’ notice.
Liam Williams wasn’t an excellent choice for an opponent for Eubank Jr. because he’s coming off a one-sided 12 round unanimous decision defeat against WBO middleweight champion Demetrius Andrade last April, and Liam Smith had twice beaten him.
It’s hard to say what Eubank Jr. would have gotten out of fighting Williams other than he could potentially do a better job of beating him than Andrade and Smith did. Andrade looked like he was toying with Williams, though, because it was too easy for him in the early going.
It wasn’t even sporting with the way Williams hit the deck in the second round after getting nailed by a massive shot from Demetrius.
Andrade looked like a big cat toying with its food, and it was about as entertaining to watch as looking paint dry in the afternoon sun.
That’s why it was so baffling that Eubank Jr. picked Williams out as his next opponent. You can argue that Eubank Jr. has turned into a colossal underachiever to the extreme, so it’s not that surprising that he was looking to face Andrade’s leftovers.
If Eubank Jr’s promoters act quick, maybe they can dig up Billy Joe Saunders to get him to fill in if his surgically repaired right eye has healed from his surgery last May.
Eubank Jr. wants a title shot against IBF middleweight champion Gennadiy Golovkin, and he’d been hoping that taking Liam Williams’ scalp would open the door for him to get that fight. Now, it doesn’t look so good for Eubank Jr.
He needs a body quickly for the December 11th card, and it’s going to have to be someone good this time if he wants to use the victory as a launching pad to call out GGG.
“Sources: Liam Williams has suffered an injury and is out of the scheduled middleweight fight vs. Chris Eubank Jr. on Dec. 11 in Cardiff, Wales. The fight was Sky Sports’ best matchup – by far – since Matchroom parted ways with the network over the summer,” said @MikeCoppinger.