By Jake Tiernan: Liam Smith and Chris Eubank Jr will meet in a rematch on July 1st in Manchester, England.
Mike Coppinger is reporting the news of the Smith vs. Eubank Jr rematch. It’s a fight that should interest a lot of boxing fans, even though neither guy is a major player in their respective weight classes.
There’s no word yet whether DAZN will put the Smith-Eubank Jr on pay-per-view, and if they do, which countries would need to pay to see it.
Eubank Jr hasn’t fought since his loss, and it might be a mistake on his part not to have taken a confidence booster to get him ready for the rematch with Smith. But with the risk of Eubank Jr losing an interim fight, it’s a good idea that he goes straight into the rematch because he looks like he’s lost a lot from his game.
It’s safe to say that if Eubank Jr doesn’t make massive changes to his game, he will be knocked out again by Smith.
At 33, Eubank Jr isn’t the aggressive slugger he once was from 2011 to 2017. He’s now older and more of a potshot fighter than the combination puncher he’d been when he was younger.
Smith failed to cash in with a fight against Gennadiy Golovkin after his win over Eubank Jr. That would have been an ideal situation for Smith because he could have gotten a nice payday before his rematch with Eubank Jr.
For Golovkin not to have taken that fight, likely, there wasn’t the kind of money that he’d been accustomed to getting when he was under contract with DAZN and HBO.
Fans have been eagerly waiting for the announcement of the rematch ever since the 34-year-old former WBO junior middleweight champion ‘Beefy’ Smith (33-3-1, 20 KOs) pulled off a big upset last January, dropping the favorite Eubank Jr (32-3, 23 KOs) twice in the fourth round to get a TKO victory.
Eubnk Jr, 33, made himself easy for Smith by backing into a corner and making himself a stationary target for him to unload with a flurry of shots.
Smith-Eubank Jr is a good domestic-level scrap that is more about entertainment than one with any bearing for the 160-lb division.
“Smith (33-3-1, 20 KOs) scored the upset win over Eubank when they fought in January, a fourth-round TKO that included two knockdowns. One month later, Eubank tweeted that he exercised his contractual right to an immediate rematch.
