By Charles Brun: The going price for the Chris Eubank Jr vs. Liam Smith card on January 21st on Sky Sports PPV is £19.95 on Sky PPV for their match at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, England.
The former IBO super middleweight champion Eubank Jr is still hoping to line up a fight against welterweight Conor Benn once his case is resolved.
If Benn receives a lengthy ban, Eubank Jr is going to have to decide whether he wants to try and fight for a world title at 160 or continue to look for easy marks in the weight classes below him.
At Eubank Jr’s age, he should be showing more ambition to do something with his career instead of setting up circus-like fights against opposition that are incapable of winning titles.
Eubank Jr (32-2, 23 KOs) says he’s only going to be at 50% for the fight, which he feels is all that’s needed to defeat the 34-year-old Smith (32-3-1, 19 KOs), and he’s probably right.
Smith struggled recently to defeat the past his prime, inactive Jessie Vargas last April before stopping him in the tenth round.
You can argue that if Vargas didn’t run out of gas, he would have beaten Smith. At the time of the stoppage, the scores were 88-83, 86-85, and 86-85.
Undercard fights:
- Joseph Parker vs. Jack Massey
- Richard Riakporhe vs. Krzysztof Glowacki
- Frazer Clarke vs. TBA
- Ekow Essuman vs. Chris Kongo
- Scott Forrest vs. Amine Boucetta
- Mary Harris vs. TBA
Eubank Jr: 50% only needed to beat Liam Smith
“He didn’t really say too much. It was me being me and him kind of reacting to that, which is good. I think that’s how it’s going to be in the fight with him having to survive and react to everything I put on him until he can’t take it anymore,” said Chris Eubank Jr to BOXXER about Liam Smith at the press conference.
“50% is all I need to be to beat Liam Smith. Did it get under his skin? Probably, yeah. What’s he going to do about it? That’s the question. I think this fight is going to be awesome and so fun for me as a fighter, fighting against the type of style that Liam Smith has.
“It’s going to be fun. That inside style, looking for shots, bobbing, weaving. You can’t do that with a lot of fighters. With him, I’m going to be able to play that game, and that’s going to be fun. It’s going to be a great fight to watch,” said Eubank Jr.
Chris Jr has taken heat from boxing fans for choosing to fight the fading 154-pounder Smith instead of a contender from the 160-lb division.
At 33 years old, Eubank Jr should be facing high-caliber opposition at middleweight instead of combing the weight classes below him to set up fights against smaller, less talented guys like Conor Benn and Liam Smith.
Smith hasn’t beaten anyone of note since losing his WBO junior middleweight title to Canelo Alvarez seven years ago in 2016.
Liam briefly held the WBO title after beating little-known John Thompson in 2015 and then milked the belt with easy wins over fringe contenders Jimmy Kelly and Predrag Radošević.
“Roy is coming over. He’ll be here for this camp,” said Eubank Jr about his trainer Roy Jones Jr. Not that I need him here, but I want him. He wasn’t going to be there for my last fight because it was Eubank-Benn, and I was trying to get my old man involved. But every fight after that, as long as it’s not Benn, he will be involved with.
“I’m not overlooking him [Liam Smith], but I understand that there are much bigger fish to fry out there, and this fight puts me in a good position to do that.
“They’re sponsoring me for this fight,” said Eubank Jr about Kentucky Fried Chicken [KFC]. I enjoyed myself fairly regularly for the Conor fight, and I made the weight. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.
“You’ve got the protein in the chicken and the carbs & the beans and those famous fries. It’s an awesome partnership, and I’m glad to be on the team,” said Eubank Jr.