Liam Smith 160 vs. Chris Eubank Jr 159.3 – weigh-in results for Saturday night

By Boxing News - 09/01/2023 - Comments

By Craig Daly: A thin-looking Liam Smith weighed in at 160 lbs at the middleweight limit while his opponent Chris Eubank Jr. came in at 159.3 pounds on Friday at their weigh-in for their twelve round main event rematch this Saturday, September 2nd, at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, England.

Smith (33-3-1, 20 KOs) wants to prove that his fourth round knockout victory over Eubank Jr. (32-3, 23 KOs) wasn’t a fluke, so he will be looking to destroy the 33-year-old Chris a second time.

YouTube video

There are a lot of questions about why an aging, gray-haired non-puncher knocked out Eubank Jr. with a 60.6% KO percentage. These are some of the possible reasons why Eubank Jr. caved in:

  • Age: Eubank Jr will be 34 on September 18th, and that’s not young for a fighter.
  • Inactivity:  Fighting just once a year
  • Low-level opposition: Eubank Jr. has mostly fought domestic-level fighters, and the three times he stepped up to world-class, he lost in fights against Billy Joe Saunders & George Groves.
  • Weight drained: Eubank Jr. had been training to fight Conor Benn.

Paulie Malignaggi: “I think people are curious because it was a shock with the first fight with the results. I think it was disrespectful to Smith because he’s an ex-world champion and has accomplished a lot in the sport. He’s accomplished more than Eubank, of course,” said Malignaggi to talkSPORT Boxing.

“When you’re fading a little bit, or people look at you as you’re fading, there’s an image in people’s minds like, ‘Oh, he’s right for the taking,’ and it seemed like it was the right moment for a guy like Eubank to take over from a guy like Smith or on the world scene on the British scene.

“Smith obviously had other ideas, but that’s why the rematch is so curious because people are so emphatically excited about the rematch because it was such a shock. People wonder, ‘Oh, is it just was it just a one-off, or is Smith really better than Eubank?’

Spencer Oliver: “Listen, a lot of people are reading into the punch resistance of Chris Eubank as well, saying ‘He’s been in with the likes of George Groves and the bigger guys, and he can take the shots, and he’s never seemed to be hurt, but against Smith, there seemed to be a fragility around him.’

“He was getting hurt with jabs. Is that a case of Father Time punch resistance catching up with Eubank? Could that play a factor in this fight as well?”

Malignaggi: “I hate to think that. He’s [the soon-to-be 34-year-old Eubank Jr.] not that old, but he’s had a hard career he has had a hard career. It hasn’t been a long career. He didn’t have a long amateur career.

“He started late, so I don’t know, but I was just as shocked as everybody else. Now you could consider a lot of other things because you’ve also got to consider the fact that Liam Smith has been a good puncher but never that kind of puncher.

“He was never the kind of puncher that was hurting guys that never got hurt before. So you’ve got to think of other things. So this is why, although Smith might not like it, people have to talk about the fact that maybe Eubank was weight-drained for making the Conor Benn weight or maybe Eubank was hurt from the elbow the hit him in the exchange.

“You have to consider all of these things because, one, Eubank has never been hurt so emphatically like that, and two, Smith was never that kind of puncher. He wasn’t a weak puncher, but he was not that kind of puncher.”

Liam Smith 160 – Chris Eubank Jr 159.3
Adam Azim 139 – Aram Fanyan 139
Frazer Clarke 270 – David Allen 257
Mark Heffron 167 – Jack Cullen 167
Mikaela Mayer 141.3 – Silvia Bortot 139
Florian Marku 146.3 – Dylan Moran 145
Lauren Price 146.3 – Lolita Muzeya 147.3
Frankie Stringer 135.3 – Engel Gomez 134

YouTube video