Heaven knows, and boxing fans know, it’s time the incredibly vocal and boastful Chris Eubank Junior stepped up in class (okay, he did so in 2014, losing to WBO middleweight boss Billy Joe Saunders). Eubank Jr. claimed his “ticket” to the big, big fights this past Saturday, when he stopped Australia’s Renold Quinlan to take the lightly regarded IBO belt at super-middleweight.
But will the big fights actually happen the way Eubank Jr. says they will? Eubank Jr. says he is targeting James DeGale, a Saunders return and a shot at middleweight king Gennady Golovkin. In fact, regarding the GGG fight, Eubank Senior says he has already scheduled a meeting with Team-GGG, for a week-and-a-half from now. So just who does Eubank – either one – want for the next fight?
“We’ll be meeting with them [GGG’s people] in the next week-and-a-half,” Senior told The Star. “We’re having a direct conversation and it’s open. The fights can be made and they will be made.”
And this from Junior:
“One hundred percent [a GGG fight will happen], that’s the fight I want because that’s what the public want to see. I’ve every bit of confidence that fight with Golovkin will happen in 2017.”
There could be many obstacles to be overcome, though. First of all, GGG has the not so small matter of getting past Danny Jacobs on March 18 (so Eubank Snr, as per his statement, will be talking to Golovkin’s people about a fight after Jacobs a full month before GGG has even met Jacobs?) and then there is the matter of which TV network would get the rights to a Golovkin-Eubank Jr. fight – Junior having signed to ITV’s pay-per-view platform.
But somewhere, some day, the Eubanks will have to back up their big talk; whether it’s by taking a fight with a DeGale, a Saunders or, seemingly most unlikely, a Gennady Golovkin.
Golovkin of course is hoping to get that massive fight with Canelo Alvarez in September (assuming he comes through okay against Jacobs next month). The question must be asked: is Eubank Jr. even a fighter on GGG’s radar?